


Two Doves

by cowboykylux



Category: BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Vietnam, Angst with a Happy Ending, Counterculture, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flip Loves His Wife, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple, Married Life, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Vietnam War, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2020-10-06 12:11:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20506811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboykylux/pseuds/cowboykylux
Summary: Drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight, Flip Zimmerman comes home to a country that doesn’t want him. With your help, he works through it all.Aka, Flip Zimmerman has a hard time adjusting to life after the Vietnam War.(Set before the events of the film and 'Just A Job')





	1. Just Like That

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I hope you have been well, this is my second large Flip/Reader fic and I'm so excited to share it with you. Please heed the tags! There is some disturbing imagery in this story as it is set in and after the Vietnam War. 
> 
> There is hurt in this fic, but there is comfort as well, and I hope that you will go along on this journey with me <3

If he never sees a palm tree again, it’ll be too soon, Flip thinks as he watches, waits with bated breath as helicopters fly by.

The birds don’t even have a chance to fly away before the bright orange of a line of explosions burns into the jungle. The people don’t have a chance either, but then again, they never did. No one ever did.

The sky goes black with napalm and smoke, and Flip has to look away.

* * *

_“Soft May mists are here again._

_There, the war goes on._

_Beside the privet the creamy_

_white tulips are extra_

_fine this year. There,_

_foliage curls blackened back:_

_it will, it must_

_return. But when?_

_A cardinal enchants me_

_with its song…”_

Flip wipes the sweat from his brow, squints against the sun. The jungle is harsh, unforgiving. He shouldn’t be here. He’s there anyway, been there for two whole years. His DEROS is almost here, all he has to do is hold on a little longer. Just a little longer and he’ll be coming home to you.

Just the thought of you makes him sigh, as quiet as he can anyway. He doesn’t know who the fuck is around, doesn’t know if they’re friend or foe. Two years and he still doesn’t know. He thinks of you, thinks of your smile, of your laugh. He thinks of the tapes you send him, the voice messages he plays over and over again on the little cassette player he’s got shoved in his backpack.

He wipes the sweat from his brow.

They’re trudging, really that’s the only word for it. Waist-deep in the muddy water of a river, surrounded by humidity so thick he sometimes feels like he can’t breathe. He’s filthy, exhausted, and angry as all hell. He’s so angry, that he’s there. So angry.

He wants a cigarette, wants a drink.

He wants you.

Instead he’s here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the blazing sun and too much green, death at any moment, the fear of it keeping him awake at night. He can’t afford to stay awake at night, not like this, not with conditions like these.

He’s got the sun in his face, a pack on his back that’s fifty-pounds easy, and a gun in his hand that he didn’t think he’d ever have to shoot. He hasn’t eaten anything not from a can in months, hasn’t had a hot shower in even longer.

Two years. Two years he’d been here, Flip thinks to himself with a grimace. It was only supposed to be one, but it’s two.

His fellow Marines start to slow down, the water rising as the river-bed grows deeper. Some of these soldiers are boys, too young. Flip feels old standing next to them, next to these kids who can’t be more than nineteen, twenty. He’s thirty-two, and the boys look up to him. He wishes they didn’t.

“Are you excited?” One of them, a sweet kid named Eric, asks.

Eric’s got bright eyes and a crooked nose, and a gap in his teeth that means he can whistle louder than anyone else in the squadron. He doesn’t of course, not unless they’re in a village or a city or somewhere they can breathe for two fucking minutes. Eric can play cards like no one else can, has won more cigarettes playing poker than he probably should.

Eric got his hand blown off three weeks ago and was still waiting to be brought back home.

“For what?” Flip replies. He makes sure to keep his voice low, makes sure not to talk too loud. He doesn’t know who might hear.

“To go home, to your wife.” Eric smiles, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

It’s harder and harder to find smiles these days.

“Yeah, I am.” Flip says back, and just to humor him, takes out the pocket-watch from his jacket.

The watch belonged to Flip’s father who fought in World War 2, it used to have a picture of Flip’s mother on the inside, but now it held a picture of you.

You’re smiling in the picture, it’s a portrait of you from your wedding day. Flip had insisted on snapping an image of you, and he was glad that he did. The corners were all worn from how much he rubbed his finger along the edges of it.

Eric leans over and takes a look at you. He always says you’re pretty and Flip always agrees.

“What’s she like?” Eric asks, scanning the trees for snipers, wading in the water.

“She’s funny. Really smart too.” Flip replies, and Eric chuckles.

“Smarter than you?” He asks, always full of questions in that way teenagers are.

“Fuck yeah, way smarter than me. Do you see her here?” Flip tries to be light-hearted, but it sort of fails.

Eric chuckles again anyway.

Flip’s squadron walks through the river, holds their guns above their heads so nothing gets wet. Flip’s thankful that it’s not raining today, not pouring on their heads. Instead he’s just got the sun that filters through the green trees, the sun that shines in his eyes. They trudge on.

“Did she send you more tapes?” Eric asks, hope in his voice.

You send the squadron something every chance you get, every fucking chance, and Flip is grateful for it. Twice a month he gets letters, a package, and most importantly, cassette tapes from you. He’s always amazed at how much shit you can cram into a container no bigger than a shoebox, but you do it.

The letters he keeps for himself, the tapes are 50/50. You always send four, four small black cassette tapes that you’ve recorded yourself. Two are just you, just talking. Telling him about your day, telling him about home.

Sometimes you tell him good things, sometimes you tell him bad things. That’s life, you always say, good and bad things. He listens to them over and over again, memorizes the messages, pictures your face making the shapes of the letters, pictures how your eyes shine as you talk.

The third one is music, always music. Always a new song, never any repeats. A mix of things that are popular back home, popular around the country. Flip’s told you he plays those during the day when things are calm and there’s no immediate threat. You took that as inspiration to broaden your horizons, keeping up with the popular music all across the country as opposed to just Colorado Springs. You said you wanted to boys to have some link to home, even a thousand miles away. 

The fourth one is you reading out loud, usually a collection of poems, or a passage from a book. He likes to play those for the boys at night, it helps them sleep. If he was being honest, it helps _Flip_ sleep, but he shares it for the boys. It reminds them of a mother they don’t have anymore reading a bedtime story. When they hear you speak, it’s not like they’re sleeping in the jungle, or in a hut somewhere in the dirt – it’s like they’re home in bed.

“Yeah, I’ll play them when we settle for the day.” Flip says after all that, and Eric beams.

“Keep moving.” His commander shouts, making Flip wince.

He casts his eyes upwards to the tops of trees, knowing that the enemy could be hiding and they wouldn’t know it.

They wouldn’t know it.

* * *

“_…All war is wrong. The grass_

_here is green and buttoned_

_down with dandelions. A car_

_goes by. What peace. It–_

_the war–goes on. Fleeing_

_people. The parrot tulips_

_look like twisted guts._

_Blood on green._

_Here, a silent scream…”_

It’s dark, nighttime, finally.

They’ve settled in the mud for the eighth night in a row, and Flip thinks to himself he can’t wait for a bed. He should be on the helicopter tomorrow, he thinks to himself as he lays awake in the dark, lying on his back. He thinks of all the good things he’ll have when he’s home, a hot meal, a clean pair of socks. He thinks about the station, how CSPD is getting along without him. He thinks about his favorite brand of coffee in the percolator, thinks about the mountains. 

He closes his eyes, thinks about you. It’s the only thing that keeps him sane anymore.

In his mind’s eye, you’re wearing that white dress he loves you in. You’re laughing at something he said, at one of his snide remarks about something on the news. In his mind, you’re eating frozen grapes, slicing them between your front teeth and offering him half. He takes it straight out of your mouth with his own teeth, kisses you in the process.

In his mind’s eye, you smile against his lips and kiss him back, weaving your hands together. His were so much larger than yours, and you loved that, often pressing the palms together to make a note of the difference. Flip could curl his hand around yours easily, and he does then.

In the real world, things aren’t as nice. He’s mostly angry, mostly annoyed. He hates being here, pissed at the draft.

He wishes he had gone to college, wishes he had done something other than go straight to work after high school. But he had wanted to start a family with you right away, wanted to marry you and buy you a house and and and.

You weren’t happy, when barely two years into the marriage he was whisked away by the draft. You weren’t happy, and that made his stomach turn more than any of the violence he saw here.

There’s the soft call of the jungle all around him, and all around him are anxious boys who can’t sleep. Flip plays your tape, they listen to your poetry, until –

“Fuck – everyone get – ” His commander shouts, cut off by the sound of a gurgle. 

Bullets whizz past, startling everyone into action. They’ve been found, of course they had been. Flip’s already shooting back before he really can process what’s happening. He thinks of you as the sound of his gun echoes in his brain, the flash from the firing causing his vision to go spotty.

They were so close to the nearest village, so fucking close, Flip thought as he fired his gun, finger squeezed on the trigger tight, mowing down whatever and whoever he could. So close to being at the base, to getting on a fucking helicopter and heading home.

That’s all he wants anymore, is to head home, to head to you.

“On your left!” One of the other boys, Sam screams, alerts Flip to the man creeping up near him.

He kills him, he and Sam and Eric all back to back, just fucking shooting and shooting.

Your voice is still playing on the cassette tape player, it fucks him up to hear it against all the fucking chaos. It was just quiet a minute ago, how the fuck was it so loud? Screaming, so much screaming, both sides wounding one another.

Flip hated war, hated it as he fired round upon round into the fucking dark, hated it as the dirty sweat dripped into his eyes, down the tip of his nose. Hated it as he ran out of ammo, as he had to duck behind a tree and reload.

He hated it as his hands didn’t shake anymore, reloading the gun.

There’s running, so much running. They can’t stay, not where they are. But they can’t see either, pitch black in the middle of the night. Flip grabbed the cassette player and shoved it in his pocket and ran, hoped that the boys kept up with him.

No one is giving orders – there aren’t any to give, none except shoot and hope they don’t shoot you.

So, Flip shoots.

After what seems like hours, it’s quiet again.

They’re all panting, all of them who are left standing.

“Sound off!” Flip shouts, because he’s the only one who can. “Zimmerman.” He starts, waiting for the others to make themselves known, mark themselves as alive.

“Costell.” Eric shouts.

“Daniels.” Sam continues.

“Rocco.”

“Marques.”

“Dereon.”

One by one the squadron calls out their name, but Flip is listening to the silence in between it.

Half their men are dead, including their commander.

Everything is fucked.

Your voice still sounds on the cassette player.

* * *

_“Can we, in simple justice,_

_desert our sought allies?_

_Draw out: I do not know._

_I know the war is wrong._

_We have it in us_

_to triumph over hate and_

_death, or so_

_the suburban spring suggests.”_

The plane ride back home is long, but Flip’s never been more grateful.

It’s a twenty-hour flight to Denver, and then an hour bus ride to Colorado Springs.

He’s out of the jungle and into the sky, but it all feels the same to him, reminds him of another helicopter ride. But this time, he’s clean, in a clean formal uniform, and the lack of mud in between his toes is a blessing that Flip can’t deny. 

“Where are you headed?” A man seated next to him asks.

It’s a flight full of soldiers, all heading home to their own towns, their own cities. No one else is staying in Colorado, Flip is sure of it, from all their accents.

The man next to him has an eye-patch on and a crooked smile, an attempt at friendliness in a situation where something like that was lost in the vacuum of terror.

“Colorado Springs, home to my wife.” Flip responds, and fuck the thought of it actually happening has his heart pounding in his chest. He looks to the man next to him and gives the courtesy of asking back, “You?”

“Wife and kids waiting for me back in Oklahoma.” The man grins happily, “You have any kids of your own?”

“No not yet.” Flip answers, feeling old. This man must not be much older than him, early thirties just like him, and already with two kids.

Flip feels like he’s wasted a lot of time, fighting in this fucking war.

The man shakes his head, noting Flip’s souring expression.

“Believe me it’s better off that way, nothing like the guilt of a kid who misses their dad.” He tsks, smile fading.

“How old?” Flip is compelled to ask, just because there is something so freeing about talking about anything other than the war.

“Seven and five, here,” The man pulls out a small photograph from his breast pocket, hands it to Flip. “That’s them, and my wife, Imani.”

They look so happy, in the picture, wearing their Sunday best.

“You have a gorgeous family.” Flip says honestly, pulling out the pocketwatch, opens it and shows your picture to this man, shows it to anyone and everyone he meets. “This is my wife, (Y/N).”

“I’m happy to say the same about yours.” The man’s smile returns, and Flip takes a breath. “Are you going straight home?” He asks, and Flip nods.

“It’s a Wednesday, so she’s going to be at the grocery store, and then the dry cleaners. She’s not going to get home until four o’clock or something, and I’m supposed to get home at three, so I’m hoping to surprise her.” Flip knew your schedule like the back of his hand, and recited it easily.

He had a whole plan, was praying that the timing would work out and that he’d be home and he’d be there to greet you.

“She doesn’t know you’re coming home this early?” The man asks, making Flip huff out a nervous laugh.

“No, I didn’t want to give her a date and then crush her hopes if it didn’t happen.” He explains and the man makes a sound of realization. 

“I bet she’ll be thrilled.” He says.

“I’m hoping.” Flip says back, the conversation coming to a comfortable silence.

* * *

_“…Here, the drive is wet_

_with mist. There,_

_the war goes on. Children_

_are more valuable than_

_flowers: what a choice_

_to make! The war_

_must end. It goes on._

_That was May 1972, by James Schuyler. Come home to me soon, I love you_.”

The voice recording stops, just as the taxi cab pulls up to the house.

He’s been listening to it over and over, listening to it so much the tape has started to worn down. The flight had been grueling, the bus ride even more so, but the taxi ride was the thing that made him the most nervous.

What if he pulled up and you were already there? What if he pulled up and you weren’t, but you didn’t come home? What if you had plans for the evening, what if you didn’t want to see him anymore, what if you hated him, what if what if what if –

The taxi cab pulls up to the house, and your car isn’t there in the driveway. His car and his truck both are under a sheet, kept protected from the dust and the snow and the rain. He had missed the snow.

Flip gets out, thanks the driver who says nothing in return.

“How much do I owe you?” He asks, fishing out his wallet, ready to pay this man just about anything.

“I don’t want any of your blood money.” The man surprises him by saying with such anger in his voice that it’s all he can do not to punch the glass out of the divider.

Flip gets out, stunned by the response. He has his small suitcase of personal items, and that’s about it. The taxi drives away.

He doesn’t have his house keys on him – why would he? – so he crouches down and finds the spare hidden under a fake rock, uses it to unlock the door.

Stepping over the threshold is like a smack to the face, and before he knows it, he’s crying.

He spent so much time thinking about being home, he had almost forgotten what home was even like, and now, stepping into the foyer, it all became real to him that this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t in his mind’s eye, this was real.

There was the wonky floorboard that always creaked if you put too much pressure on it. There was the big tan couch and the glass coffee table and the soft rug by the fireplace. He ran his hand along the wall as he walked the familiar path to the kitchen, and tears are dripping down his cheek as he lifts the glass cover of the cake stand and steals a chocolate chip cookie.

It had been years since he’d had a cookie.

He looks at the clock, exactly where it’s always been, and it chimes at four, exactly as it always does.

Flip freezes when he hears the front door open, swallows the cookie so fast he’s afraid he’s going to choke, stands in the middle of the kitchen and doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

Two years in the war, and he suddenly feels like a teenager again, not knowing what to do with his hands.

He wonders how you’ve changed, because of course you’ve changed in the two years he’s been gone. He wonders how long your hair is, what you’re wearing. He wonders what you’ve been eating, what you’ve been watching. You tell him in your voice messages, but that’s only twice out of the month; he wants to know everything, wants to hear all of it.

You enter the kitchen and you freeze at the sight of him, you drop the bags of groceries like you’ve seen a ghost.

The two of you just stare at each other for a moment, and he can’t stop the tears of relief from flowing as he takes in the sight of you; you look exhausted but you’re healthy, you’re alive, you’re in front of him in your home that you share with him and you’re wearing his flannel tucked into your skirt. You’re wearing his clothes.

Something about the sight of you in his clothes make his knees go weak and he’s afraid he’s going to fall.

“Flip?” You whisper, don’t dare talk too loudly.

He wonders what’s going on in your head, but all he can think about is you’re here, you still want him, you still love him.

“Hi ketsl.” Flip whispers back, and just like that you’re crossing the room and crying in his arms.

Just like that you’re holding him tight and kissing him, kissing him like you never thought you’d kiss him again. You’re practically climbing him, jumped up onto him and wrapping your legs around his waist, kissing and kissing and kissing him.

Just like that, he lets himself cry, lets himself bury his face into your neck and breathe in the smell of you, smells the citrus and the familiar laundry detergent and shampoo.

Just like that Flip finally feels at peace.

Just like that, Flip’s home.


	2. All At Once

_All our fear_

_and hate_

_Poured from our rifles_

_Into_

_the man in black_

_As he lost his face_

_In the smoke_

_Of an exploding hand frag._

_— Frank A. Cross, Jr._

* * *

_“September 2nd, 1971. Hi honey, it’s me – you know I don’t know why I always start these messages out with ‘it’s me,’ of course you know it’s me, I sent this to you. I don’t know. I want you to know it’s me. Your wife. Mrs. (Y/N) Zimmerman.”_

Flip wanders the village, headphones over his ears to block out some of the noise. He’s listening to your tape, listens to it for the first time. The care package came that morning, and he wanted to tear it open then and there, wanted to rifle through the contents like a young boy on Hanukkah morning, but they had needed to keep moving.

They were finally in the village now, a small town surrounded by yellow fields of a crop Flip didn’t know, probably rice. He didn’t remember rice being golden. The sky was blue for once.

He walks down the paths listening to your voice, it sounded so different on the recording and yet exactly the same. He wonders how that worked, as he looks up into the fields.

A woman waves to him, and he waves back.

* * *

Flip can’t remember the last time you cried this hard, as he clings to you for dear life, clings as you shake and rattle against him, as he can feel the tremors wrack through your body. You sob, and he can’t help but sob too, can’t help but crush you to him right there in the kitchen.

“You’re not real, you’re not real.” You wouldn’t stop saying that over and over, and Flip’s heart wouldn’t stop breaking hearing it.

He cradles your head in his hand, holds it against his chest as you try to get impossibly closer to him.

“I am, I’m home, I promise.” He whispers, afraid of raising his voice, afraid that if he did he’d just start yelling, screaming.

There’s something already clawing at the inside of his throat, something already begging to just let everything out – so much to talk about, so much to do now that he’s home, to do to _you _that it suddenly feels like there’s no time, can’t possibly be any time for it all.

“If this is a dream – ” You start but Flip tips your chin up to stop that train of thought right then and there.

“It’s not, it isn’t ketsl.” He promises, smooths his thumb over your lip.

His eyes darken as you take the finger into your mouth, mesmerized as your white white white teeth bite down into the pad of his thumb, as your tongue swirls around the tip of it, as your spit glistens in its wake.

“Prove it.” You look up through your lashes with heat in your red-rimmed eyes, tears staining your cheeks even then, a fire through rain.

He proves it the only way he knows how, with a searing kiss that has him walking you backwards, has him wrapping your legs around his hips, carrying you up the stairs two at a time. He’s carried far heavier through far worse conditions; this is a blessing in comparison.

He sets you on the bed gingerly, too afraid of hurting you like he hurt so many these past two years, too afraid to lose himself. He rips the buttons of your flannel – his flannel – open, pushes it down your shoulders.

How long had he dreamed of this? How long had he been waiting to see you, touch you, taste you? Now he finally could, now the time had come, and he found he couldn’t stop himself from shaking so badly that his hands on your tits seemed almost like a blur to him.

“Phil I need you, please.” You beg for him, use his name, his real name, one he hasn’t heard in so long, one he almost forgot altogether.

“I’m right here, I swear I’m right here.” He assures you, but really, is assuring himself.

* * *

_“It’s been eleven months, three weeks, and two days since you left – but who’s counting? I am. I want you back home. I hope you’re safe, God I hope you’re safe. Jimmy’s been helping me around the house, just like you told him to. Harry and Bridges have been stopping by too, checking in on me to make sure everything’s okay. I painted the dining room, I was sick of looking at the white walls. It’s brown now! I hope you like it. If you don’t I’ll paint it a different color.”_

Flip envisions the house, envisions the dining room. He thinks about the table in the center of the room and the chairs that circle around it. He thinks about the one chair that always wobbles, no matter how many times he fixes it. He thinks he can picture it with brown walls, but he’s never been very good at visualizing.

You don’t know, but the small things like this keep him sane as he walks up and down the village, walks through the fields. He’s starting to dream about home too much, each time it looks a little different. He’s starting to forget what it really looks like, and it scares him. You don’t know, but your voice soothes those fears.

He cuts through the fields and goes down towards the water, the edge of a pond where rice shoots stick up. He can see his reflection in the pond, and he’s surprised by what he finds. He looks like how your voice feels, coming through the cassette player; exactly like himself and nothing like himself at the same time. He knows it’s him, knows that face, but he doesn’t know the age in it, doesn’t know when the fuck he started looking like his father.

He sits down at the edge of the pond, lays on his back and watches the clouds move. It’s the first time in weeks he has been able to lay down without fear of being shot in the stomach, and that relief is not lost on him. The sun shines brightly, reflects off the water in sparkles that make him sick.

* * *

You’re in control this time. If Flip were honest, you were always in control, always the one in charge. You told how you wanted him, whether it were with words or touches, and Flip obliged, was more than happy to oblige.

If you said _jump_, he’d ask _how high?_

You’re telling him now, ordering him on top of you with the way you pull at his shoulders. You need this, he knows you do, needs this just as badly as he does, and oh he wants to give it to you, want to make you happy – make you come.

He wants to be sweet with you, wants to take his time and treat you right, wants to make you come as many times as he can before he even shoves his cock into you, but you’re whining and crying underneath him, begging him. He obeys, shucks his uniform off, lets it fall to the floor to deal with later. He doesn’t think about it, doesn’t give a shit about it, not when you’re desperately reaching out to him, for him.

“Fuck me.” You demand, and Flip is weak, too weak for you, wants nothing but to please you, give you everything.

“I’m here.” He whispers, not trusting his own voice, as he parts your thighs and slides inside you.

He can’t move, not right away, too caught up in the feeling of you surrounding him. Your cunt is hot and wet and so so tight, gripping his cock like a vice as he bottoms out inside you, as he lets you envelop him completely. Your pussy had been waiting for him, waited two years for him, and now it was practically sucking him in, demanding he fuck you.

Flip was never one to deny you anything.

Curses drip from his lips as he thrusts, slowly at first, hips nudging against you, the head of his cock knocking up against your cervix and making you hiccup out a moan. Your tears have stopped for the time being, your face too concentrated on the feeling of finally being filled the way only Flip can provide.

“Yes!” Tumbles from your lips, travels right to his cock, tingles up his spine and into the backs of his eyes, “Yes, Phil, you’re so good – too good to me – oh!”

The praise spurs him on, his chest soars that he makes you happy, makes you feel _good_.

“Harder, you’re doing so well sweetheart, harder.” It’s addicting, your voice, the raw unfiltered force of your voice, and Flip moans just from the sound of it, the feel of your hand in his hair.

As he picks up his pace, he can feel the adrenaline rush through his veins, has to shut his eyes and try and breathe so that he can keep his rhythm. If he looks at you now, he’ll come, so overwhelmed at the smell and feel and taste of you – he has to taste you. You’ve got your head thrown back and he takes advantage of your exposed neck and chest to suck bright red marks claiming you as his.

You taste like salt and sweat and sex, and he can’t get enough, can’t stop laving his tongue over your pulse where he can feel it beating wildly. It’s a reminder that this is real – how can he be so fucking lucky for this to be real?

You’re his, he’s with you, he’s home.

“Fuck – I missed this – god I missed you.” He moans through gritted teeth, unable to stop a few tears from sliding down his nose, watches as it drips onto your sternum, as it mingles and soaks your skin. He’s not sad, neither of you are sad, not right now. No, now it’s hunger and anger and lust and love, all mixed up like the sweat on your chest.

Your tits are bouncing from the force of him, and he’s practically punching gasps and moans out of you, but you compose yourself enough to hold onto his face with your hands, palms cupping his cheeks and curling around his ears, bringing him in for a kiss, sucking the breath out of him in desperation.

“I love you, I love you so much – you can’t ever do that to me again.” You insist, demand.

You’re angry – so angry that your teeth are clenched, even as he’s railing you into the mattress. Not angry at him, never him, but at the world, at the war for taking him away from you for so long – for taking him away at all.

* * *

_“It’s been so rainy here, I’ve been wearing your flannels. They’re almost starting to lose the smell of you. Don’t make fun of me, but sometimes I light one of your cigarettes and wave it around, just to have the smell of the smoke, the smell of you.”_

Flip sighs, wishes for a cigarette desperately. He wonders if he’ll be able to exchange something for some, maybe bum one off Eric who keeps winning them in poker matches. Kid’s too young to be smoking anyway, Flip thinks as the clouds go by. Never mind that he started smoking when he was fifteen, never mind.

* * *

“I won’t, I promise I won’t – oh shit – ” Flip loses himself, his arm gives out just a little as he slips against the sheets.

He topples on top of you, grabs at your thighs with calloused hands and forces you deeper into the mattress, yanks your hips as close to his as they can go, fucks the anger of you, out of the both of you.

“Right there! Oh! Flip!” You’re yelling now, shouting, you don’t even realize how loud you are. It’s not late, not dark out yet, and the neighbors are probably outside, probably hearing him make you scream.

_Fine_, he thinks, brain fuzzy and addled with pleasure enough to not give a shit, _let them hear. Let the whole fucking world hear me love my wife._

He’s getting close, curses to himself for not wearing a condom, curses that he’s going to have to pull out of you.

“I have to – ” He starts but you shake your head, dig your heels into his lower back to prevent him from going anywhere.

“Come in me! Come in me it’s okay.” You say, adamant, stunning him. He’d never come in you without a condom before, even though you were on contraceptives yourself.

“Are you sure?” He asks, hips on autopilot, moving of their own accord, moving in compliance with your wishes.

“Yes, please, _please _Flip.” You beg, and there are the tears again, there they are making your eyes too bright, making you look wild and frantic, desperate.

He knows what you’re thinking, and he’s worried his heart’s going to stop.

“I love you, oh my god I love you.” He kisses you all over, pants into your neck as his hips thrust once, twice, three more times before they push into you with a stop.

* * *

_“I haven’t gone to the station in a little while, it hurts too much to see your desk empty. The whole house feels empty without you. I’m sorry, I know this is a depressing message. I’ve been playing your tapes over and over again, I’m almost afraid I’m going to fuck up the cassette player. Shit I’m running out of room on this one, go play the second tape – ”_

Flip’s heart pangs as he laughs, chuckles to himself, chuckles over how human you are. Despite everything, you were so human. He loves hearing you complain about the mundane things, loves hearing the tsk you do when something doesn’t go right. He wishes he could go back to the simple life, sitting in the office never seemed like such a luxury. 

He takes the headphones off, reaches into his pocket for the cassette player to switch out the tapes – when he hears the gunfire and screaming.

He’s frozen only for a moment, and then he’s running into the village, running and running and already checking to make sure he has ammo, frantically searching for who, for what, for where.

He finds it when a window shatters next to him, glass exploding into the side of his face, his neck. He doesn’t have any time to react to the pain, instead taking all his energy and focus to fire into the chaos. The Viet Cong had found them, caught up to them in the South yet again, and were torching everything in sight.

Homes of the villagers went up in flames, thick black smoke engulfing the skies, the orange glow of a raging fire picking up wind and sucking oxygen from all the plants and trees around it, feeding the flames. He shouts, just because he can, just because he has to, shouts into the smoke as he shoots and shoots, soot stinging his eyes and making him cough.

How ironic would it be, going to war and dying from soot, of all things?

The town blazes, houses burning to a crisp, and Flip has to duck and dodge bullets, with no where to hide.

* * *

In the quiet space, Flip rests his head in the crook of your neck. If he could, he’d crawl into you and live there, curl around your heart and protect it from everything, protect it from the harsh world he lived in, the one he fought in. You were everything to him, everything. He didn’t even know what he was fighting for, if not for you.

In the quiet space, your hand finds its way into his hair, and he could cry if he weren’t out of tears.

In the quiet space, it felt like years hadn’t passed. No, with his nose pressed against your jugular and your hand in his hair, it felt like just yesterday that he had seen you. Like yesterday and a thousand years ago, all at once.

“Let me look at you?” You ask, breaking the silence after who knows how long.

The sun has started to set, deep gold over the mountains just outside your property.

“I’m okay, I promise.” Flip says softly, thinking about just how painfully okay he wasn’t.

“Let me look anyway?” You ask, hearing him, hearing what he’s thinking.

Flip sits up, and you follow suit. His eyes track your every movement, he watches as the sheets pool and twist around you, the light cotton kissing your skin and caressing the spots where his fingertips dug hungry marks.

You reach to turn the light on, and then the inspection begins.

You did this sometimes, after a long day of Flip at work, or after a dangerous mission. You touched every inch of him, ran your fingers over every single centimeter, looking and feeling. You had his whole body mapped out in your mind, had every single mole and freckle and scar memorized.

He knew your body inside and out, and you knew his, just by virtue of being together for so long, so in love for so long. The feeling of your fingers lightly dragging across his skin brought goosebumps to his arms, a shudder to his shoulders.

He lets his eyes close and revels in the touch, leans back until he’s laying down, his head at the foot of the bed. You climb on top of him, straddle his hips in an entirely non-sexual manner as you reacquaint yourself with his body.

He has so much he wants to say, doesn’t know where to start, so for now he remains silent, too afraid to break this spell, too unsure of where to even begin.

After so long of anger and terror, this gentle caress is almost more than he can bear. He doesn’t even realized how starved for your touch he had become. It was like how one doesn’t realize it’s raining until the rain stops – in the absence of the pain, there was only the overwhelming relief of you.

“What’s this one?” You ask as your fingers walk up his neck, brushing against a thin scar that was no longer than an inch long.

“Just some broken glass.” He murmurs, catching your wrist with his lips, kissing the pulse there.

“Did you do these stitches yourself?” You ask softly, trying your best to chuckle through it, trying to be lighthearted. It falls flat, and Flip sighs.

“Yeah.” He swallows.

* * *

The shooting stops in time for Flip to hack up a lungful of smoke.

There’s a hand on his back and he whirls around, already ready to punch, fist balled up tight. He swings, can’t see in the smoke, but Eric dodges just in time. Flip sighs with relief that it’s him, just him.

“Did they get you?” Eric pants, face bloodied and beaten when it’s all over, like he had fallen face first onto a rock.

“Huh?” Flip asks, turning his head and catching a glimpse of his collar soaked crimson all the way through. He reaches a dirty hand up to his neck, remembers the glass and winces. “Oh fuck, no, this is from glass.”

“You need to get that closed before it gets infected.” Eric says, like he’s not completely covered in cuts too.

“I would but they burned down the fucking clinic.” Flip gestures to the smoldering building, coughs into his elbow.

They need to get to a clearing, need to get the fuck out of there.

They need to get the fuck out of Vietnam.

“Where’s your first aid kit?” Eric asks, and Flip sighs.

“In the backpack, but I don’t have a mirror to –”

“Here.” Eric hands him one. It’s a broken shard, not much, but it’s enough to give Flip enough of a reflection where he can tend to his own wounds.

“Fuck I can’t watch this.” Eric sucks in a breath as Flip pulls needle and thread through skin, too numb to even feel anything.

“Then don’t.” Flip says, putting away the pieces of this trauma, packing it all up and storing it inside his brain somewhere he can deal with later, because he just doesn’t have the time, the energy to deal with it now as he sews himself shut. “Just keep the mirror still.”

“Jesus how can you – ” Eric gags, and Flip snaps.

“Just! Keep the mirror still!” He shouts, breath heaving. He’s bleeding again, has to re-do the whole fucking thing.

“Okay okay, I’m sorry.” Eric says softly, holds the mirror steady.

Flip doesn’t know how, how his hands don’t shake.

“What are we going to do now?” Eric asks, looking awfully young. Too young and too old all at once.

“I don’t know.” Flip sighs, feeling awful, feeling every ache and pain in his back and in his knees, feeling like his father when he doesn’t have an answer. The thought exhausts him, somehow more than the fighting did. “Backup is coming, we have to wait for them.”

“You’re still bleeding.” Eric points out.

“Well do you want to do a better job?” He asks.

“They look great.” Eric says, and despite it all, the two of them laugh.

* * *

“You okay?” You ask him, bringing him back.

“Yeah.” He lies, and you see right through it.

You’ve always seen through him.

“You can talk to me, you know that, don’t you?” You whisper and he nods his head.

He will, he’ll tell you everything…he just can’t right now. It’s all too raw right now. You nod and understand, Flip wonders how the hell you were always so understanding.

Most people would have left him for less than this, he knows that, is painfully aware.

But you pull him into your arms, you hold him tight as he hides his face, hangs it low. He doesn’t even know how to describe what he’s feeling, doesn’t know how to articulate it. He doesn’t know, and it’s so fucking frustrating, just like everything else is.

He wonders if he’ll ever know.

“Everything’s fucked, over there.” Flip says, takes all those thoughts and comes up with that.

“I know.” You reply as you smooth your hands down his hair, down his back, across his shoulders. “But you’re home now.” You say.

He smiles, is about to reply when he yawns, big and loud right in your face.

“I’m sorry – ” He says, mortified, terrified that you’ll be mad at him for being so rude, but that’s a silly thought because you’re laughing, chuckling so fondly at him.

“Don’t, don’t be. We can sleep, let’s go to sleep.” You nudge, even though the sun has barely barely set behind the mountains, even though it’s still a golden evening in your room.

He looks at you for a moment before realizing he doesn’t care, and nods, kisses you.

“Lay on your back?” He asks quietly, “I just need to feel you.”

You don’t even ask what he means, you just do as he says.

Sometimes, Flip wishes he could marry you all over again. Times like these, when you welcome him with open arms as he shuffles on top of you, rests his head on your chest. His ear is right above your heart, and he counts the heartbeats there, breaths in time with your breaths.

_12…13…14…_

He counts and counts, taps his finger against your side, until he can feel himself start to lull into sleep.

“I love you.” You say softly, so soft, hand gently carding through his hair.

“I love you more.” He mumbles back.

_33…34…35…_

“No I love you more.” You huff out a small laugh, and Flip looks up at you with lidded eyes.

“Well I love you most.” He says, so sincerely that you can’t help but smile.

“You win this round.” You say, and he settles down against you, finally finally finally content.

_58…59…60._

* * *

“Don’t laugh at me for this.” Eric asks as they’re walking to a clearing, walking towards the fields Flip sat in earlier.

“What?” He asks, wondering where the rest of their group is.

They pass too many dead bodies on the ground, men and women and children that make Flip’s whole body churn. He’ll throw up about it later, he doesn’t have anything in his stomach right now to give. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to help them.

He can’t, none of them can.

“Would you tell me a story?” Eric asks. Flip’s learned he does this to deal, talks through it. It he doesn’t talk, he’d scream. He doesn’t know what he’d do.

“What, like a bedtime story?” Flip asks back, and they reach the clearing, golden fields of rice paddies untouched by the rage of war.

“Yeah.” Eric says, kneels at the edge of the pond.

Flip tries not to think about how fucked up all of this is. He fails.

“Okay.” Flip sits down next to him, and they begin washing their hands, their face in the cool water. Flip’s nauseous from the way the water turns pink. “What about?”

“Anything, I don’t care.” Eric says softly, scrubbing his face and turning it towards the sun, letting the water evaporate and warm his skin.

Flip can’t think of any stories in that moment. He hates that feeling, knowing that he had read a thousand, had been read a thousand more by his ma, and now he can’t recall a single one.

“You ever heard of Harold and the Purple Crayon?” He asks finally, when he can see a crescent sliver of the moon shining in the blue sky. Flip wonders how one could see the sun and the moon at the same time. He adds it to his list of things to ask you, you always know these sort of things.

“Nope.” Eric shakes his head, and curls his knees up, wraps his arms around his legs like he’s giving himself a hug.

Flip doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know if he should hug this kid, so he just sits down next to him.

“Well once upon a time,” He starts, because that’s how all stories should start, he thinks, “There was a boy named Harold. He had a purple crayon.”

“Riveting.” Eric snorts, and Flip smacks his arm.

“You want me to tell the story or no?” He asks playfully, desperately trying not to think of the scorching village behind him.

It’s fucked, the whole thing’s fucked and –

“Sorry.” Eric says softly, and Flip sighs.

“He decided to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there wasn’t any moon. And you need a moon for a walk in the moonlight, so Harold took his purple crayon and he drew one.” Flip pretends to draw a moon shape with an invisible crayon, wonders if Eric can see it.

“Now he had his moon, but there was no path to walk on. And you need a path to walk on for a walk in the moonlight, so, he took his crayon and drew one. He drew it long and straight so he wouldn’t get lost. He walked along the path, but he found it wasn’t very exciting, so he left it and drew himself a shortcut, and the moon walked with him.”

“The shortcut led right to where Harold though a forest ought to be. So, he drew one. He didn’t want to get lost in the forest, so he only drew one tree. It happened to be an apple tree, and he thought the apples would be very tasty when they got red, so he drew a dragon underneath the tree to guard the apples. When the dragon came to life, he got scared and sailed away, and the moon sailed with him.”

“Harold made land, and on the beach he wondered where he was. The beach reminded him of picnics, which made him hungry, so he took his purple crayon and drew himself a feast. He drew himself not one, but nine different kinds of pies, all the kinds he liked best. There was so much leftover that he decided to draw a very hungry moose and a porcupine to finish it up. So off he went looking for a hill for him to find, a tall hill to help him see where he was, and the moon went with him.”

“Harold knew the higher up he went, the farther he could see. He figured if he went high enough he could see his bedroom window. It was getting late, and he thought he ought to get to bed. But he slipped, and with the help of his purple crayon he drew a hot air balloon. He had a fine view from the balloon – but he couldn’t see his window, or a house. So he made himself a house, with plenty of windows, and when he landed, the moon landed with him.”

“He made big windows and small windows, lots and lots of buildings with windows, but none of them were his. He couldn’t think of where it might be, so he drew a policeman to ask for help. The policeman pointed, and he walked away. He was followed by the moon, wishing he were in his room and in bed. When suddenly – Harold remembered where the building was, always right around the moon. So Harold drew himself a bed, and drew up the covers, and Harold dropped off to sleep.”

Flip finishes, and it’s quiet. Far too quiet.

“If I had a purple crayon, I’d draw an end to this war.” Eric says softly, reaching a hand up to trace the moon in the sky.

Flip doesn’t have time to respond before an explosion goes off.

* * *

He wakes up in a cold sweat, some hours later.

It’s dark outside, and he panics, eyes frantically searching in the night for enemies unseen, hand automatically reaching for his gun when his palm nudges you instead.

Oh right, he thinks to himself as his whole body sags with relief. You’re sleeping next to him, in your bed, the light of the moon caressing your body, lining you in silver that feels too ethereal to be true. He reaches his hand out further to trace the contour of your body, careful not to wake you up.

You wake up anyway, startled too, eyes wide before you recognize who it is next to you.

You’re both so fucked, he thinks as he collects you in his arms silently.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but he doesn’t care. It’s the most restful sleep he’s ever had, simply because it’s next to you.

“Bad dreams?” You ask, already pulling him close, already grounding him with your touch. He shakes his head, this wasn’t a bad one, not by a long shot. You frown, unconvinced. “Then why are you up?”

“Habit.” Flip swallows, wipes the sweat from his brow, “Couldn’t sleep more than a couple hours over there, in case.”

He doesn’t need to explain why, doesn’t need to tell you. You already know, can read it in his face.

You study him for a moment, before checking the time. He doesn’t bother looking, doesn’t care to know.

“Do you want cocoa?” You ask, surprising him.

“Hm?” He asks back, wanting to make sure he heard right.

“Hot cocoa, I can make us some.” You offer, and Flip huffs out a laugh.

It’s the middle of June, it’s far too hot outside for cocoa, and yet you’re already reaching for your robe, already sticking your feet into the slippers he bought you years ago.

“What – ketsl no, go back to sleep.” Flip pats the bed but you shake your head, a gentle smile on your lips.

“You’re delusional if you think I’m not going to stay up with you.” You say, “You can stay here if you’d like, I’ll bring it up.”

“No – ” Flip panics, making your eyes soften. “I mean, I want to be where you are.” He swallows, swallows his screams, the shouts that want to break through.

“Me too.” You whisper, hold out a hand for him.

You hold out your hand and he takes it.

He doesn’t ever want to let go.


	3. Of Course

_After our war, the dismembered bits_

_—all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters,_

_gouged lips, odd tibias, skin flaps, and toes—_

_came squinting, wobbling, jabbering back._

\- _John Balaban_

* * *

After weeks of trudging through the water, the rivers and marshes of the dense thick jungle, they’re in the sky. It’s an altogether different type of being vulnerable, Flip thinks.

They’re up in the helicopters, for whatever fucking reason. There’s solidarity in numbers, about a dozen helicopters flying next to them, all in a formation Flip doesn’t know, wasn’t told.

He wonders what it looks like, down on the ground. How it must look to see a dozen metal birds crossing the horizon. Flip clenches his fist around his gun, he sweats. 

He hates this.

All he wants is to listen to your tape, but he’s got big ear-muffs on, they all do. Pilots said best to wear them so they don’t get their eardrums blown out, best to avoid the tinnitus.

You might survive the war, they said, but the tinnitus would drive you crazy.

As much as he wants to listen to the tapes, he doesn’t want to risk it.

It’s loud, so loud, and the world below them is so small, green as far as the eye can see. It’s like some hell, some tropical hell made just for him. Even up in the sky it’s hot, humid. How the fuck did that work? The engine and the blades of the helicopter drown everything out, every thought that Flip might have had is reduced down to _it’s so fucking loud._

There’s five guys crammed into the back of one Huey along with Flip, but none of them are really doing anything. The pilots don’t tell them what was going on, they just hover, hover and fly around and around, searching for something.

“What are we looking for?” Eric shouts over all the noise, is the first one to dare ask, because surely they can’t be looking for people.

They’re too high up for that, can’t see past the thick canopy of green green trees, palms blowing around from the wind generated by their own machine.

“Shut the fuck up!” One of the pilots shouts, and Flip grits his teeth.

“He only asked a fucking question.” Flip shouts back, voice hoarse.

There’s no reason to be jack asses, Flip thinks.

Everyone pretends they didn’t hear him, which was probably for the better. He doesn’t need getting into a fistfight, not on top of everything else.

In the distance, one of the helicopters drops a bomb and there’s a great plume of smoke.

The jungle cracks in half, orange litters the sky, and Eric has his answer.

* * *

Flip doesn’t sleep that night.

You don’t sleep either, instead content to curl up against your husband on the couch as he shivers from cold that isn’t there. You make him hot chocolate, you put extra marshmallows in it and extra whipped cream and Flip drinks it even though he’s afraid it’ll make him sick.

So much sugar after none at all can’t be good, he thinks, but you made it for him, so it has to be good, he reasons.

It coats his throat and the roof of his mouth and it makes him calm in a way that makes him anxious.

When was the last time he didn’t have to worry? When was the last time he didn’t have to be so fucking on edge? It’s strange, not keeping one eye open, not looking over your shoulder, searching for enemies that are eight thousand miles away.

Is it going to be like this forever?

It’s pitch black outside and you’re both still awake, still on the couch as even the crickets have gone to sleep.

Flip sees the way you’re looking at him, but he can’t place the expression. It’s fear, it’s worry, it’s relief all in one, he doesn’t know how you do it. He can barely process one emotion, one feeling, one mindset – let alone three. He feels like he’s never had a very strong emotional threshold, but now…now it’s even more frayed, seams struggling around the edges.

He wants to tell you everything, wants to talk to you, wants to get it out.

He needs to get it out, he needs to.

He doesn’t know how.

“The brown walls look nice.” He says instead, says as you’re pressed so close against him, so close under the quilt his mother made, that he can feel the shudders that wrack through your body, “Lighter than I was thinking.”

You look to the dining room, to the brown walls. They’re the color of coffee diluted with cream, and Flip finds himself craving caffeine, real stuff, brewed stuff, not the instant shit he drank.

You look at the walls and you look at him, and Flip looks at nothing in particular.

“Do you want them darker? I’ll make them darker I was just – ” You start, but Flip shakes his head, pulls you impossibly closer, wants to crawl inside your skin and live there, he wants to live in you where he’s safe and warm.

He can’t, so he tries his best to get close, as close as possible, impossibly close.

“They’re perfect, really. They’re perfect.” He assures you, reassures you, and his heart breaks when even now there are tears in your eyes.

Your hand reaches up tentatively to caress his cheek, like he’s a dream, a ghost, something you’ve invented after so many nights alone.

You’re both so fucked, he thinks, fucked by this war in more ways than one.

“Kiss me?” You ask, you beg, desperate, and Flip accidentally jabs you in the face with his nose from how fast he ducks to capture your lips.

He sets the mug of cocoa down on the table, careful to place it on a coaster, careful not to fuck up the table like he’s fucked up everything else, and cups your face in his scarred hands. He pulls you into his lap and the two of you wetly cry against one another, kiss and kiss and kiss until your lips are puffy, swollen from it.

He kisses your lips, your cheeks, your eyelids. He kisses your nose and your forehead and your jaw and your neck, kisses every part of you that he can reach and hopes the kisses travel to the parts that he can’t; your heart, your lungs, your soul.

“I can’t…even start to explain how much I love you.” Flip is all choked up, he’s swallowing around hard lumps in his throat that have lived there for years, needing to try and unpack at least this small part of his brain, needing to at least get this part out of the dark pit in his mind.

“You don’t have to.” You rush to say, not wanting to force him, not wanting to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. He had been ordered around enough, you thought, “You don’t have to say anything Phil, you know I’m yours.”

He pinches his eyes shut, hot wet tears stinging stinging stinging, like acid and acrid smoke from fires that only exist in his head.

“I was worried…” He starts, but can’t finish, too afraid to speak the words, too afraid to confirm or deny.

That’s what he struggles with the most, he thinks, as he’s got you in his lap clinging to him, to every word he says, if he speaks the things on his mind they’ll become real, they’ll become things he has to confront. He doesn’t know if he has the strength to confront anyone, anything.

“What?” You ask, prompt him gently, not overbearing or forceful.

Flip wants to scream, but it’s too quiet, and he’ll scare you if he does, and the absolute last fucking thing he wants to do is scare you, now or ever.

“I was worried you wouldn’t want me – that you’d moved on.” And his pulse is racing racing racing, and he wants to run because you’re looking at him and he doesn’t know what you’re going to say, doesn’t know what you’re thinking, and the silence is palpable in the living room then.

You look at the brown walls of the dining room, look down at the scar along his palm, pink and shiny, freshly healed.

“You know, every night I would wait for you to come through the front door?” You say softly, so softly, and Flip can hear that you’ve got lumps in your throat too, you’ve got ghosts in your mind too.

“I’d lie awake in bed and listen for the front lock to unlatch, for you to drop your keys in the little dish in the hallway and then come up to bed and fall onto the mattress in all your clothes like you do sometimes when a case is long. Every single night, I’d wait, until I couldn’t wait any more and I’d fall asleep in your clothes.” You say, looking at him, really looking at him.

Flip looks back, sees the age in your eyes from being apart, sees how the two years have treated you.

He hates that they’ve not been kind, hates that they’ve treated you poorly.

“I played all your records and watched your favorite shows and I imagined you laughing along to them or singing _terribly_ – ”

“Hey.” He interrupts with a soft laugh, and you laugh too just because you can, just because you _can._

But then the laugh fades away and the softness around your eyes returns, and Flip’s stomach is twisted and churning because he’s terrified of the way your smile drops.

“…And then I’d cry because I didn’t know what you were doing, where you were, if you were alright. Jimmy came over like you told him to, came over every Tuesday and Thursday to help me with the house and my sanity, but then he would leave and I’d be sitting in this house alone, left with the ghost of you everywhere I looked. I’d think of something funny to tell you, and you wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t be coming home. I wrote them down, thinking I’d save them for when you got here, but then the first year came and you still weren’t.”

And you’re holding it together, but just barely, because if you lose it he’ll lose it, and then you’ll both be lost and neither of you can handle that right now, not right now, not so soon. He sees you shaking, and he’s shaking, and all you have is each other, and it’s more than enough; it’s more than enough but it can’t stop the shakes, the shivers.

“Can you tell me now?” He asks, and you smile at him sadly, shrug with one shoulder.

“I don’t think they’ll be funny now.” You reply, and for a moment, Flip wonders if anything will be funny again.

He can hear the same thought in your head.

“Tell me anyway?” Flip asks, begs, grasps your hands in his and brings them back to his cheeks, holding you, holding you as you’re holding him.

* * *

They’re dropping bombs, on the jungle.

Flip doesn’t know why, it doesn’t look like there’s anything there, just trees.

Birds fly frantically, try not to get consumed by the flames or the smoke, and most of them fail. Flip watches as the thick dark plumes envelop them, hears the horrific squawking of terrified creatures. He doesn’t know if he actually can hear them, or if he’s imagining it.

“Zimmerman! Start firing!” Someone barks an order at him, and he hates it, hates that he has to obey.

There are machine guns mounted to the sides of the Huey, and Flip’s stomach swoops when he’s told to man one. Wasn’t it enough to drop bombs like rain? Wasn’t it enough to incinerate the jungle – they had to shoot at it too?

Flip was getting so fucking tired of shooting.

He’s the oldest in the platoon, oldest one in the helicopter. These fresh-faced kids have no idea what they’re doing, there was never any time to teach them. He has experience, so he’s the one who has to do it. It’s his second time in Vietnam, and between that and the work he did with the CSPD before coming back to this hell, he’s the man most qualified for the job – no matter how badly he doesn’t want to be.

He’s just thankful he’s not the one dropping the bombs.

“Now, Zimmerman!” They shout, and he grinds his jaw, thinks that if he’s going to have to do this, he’s going to do it his way.

_Fuck it_, he thinks as he puts the tape in anyway, slides it into the small cassette player in his pocket. He’s about to stick the earbuds in his ears when he sees Eric steeling himself, like he’s going to throw up.

It’s the kid’s first helicopter ride, and he’s terrified, Flip can see it in his face.

After thinking about it for a minute, he silently hands the kid the cassette player, shoves it against his chest. He’s heard your voice a million times, and this kid doesn’t have anyone. Not a single person back home, no one except his mother. If your voice can give him comfort for ten fucking minutes, he’ll be glad.

Flip puts the earmuffs back on his head, and fires into the blaze as the helicopter whips up the flames.

* * *

You tell him as the sun starts to rise, as the purple light of dawn makes way for pinks and oranges and red. He listens and despite himself, he laughs, despite everything, it’s funny.

The way you tell the stories are funnier than the stories themselves, most of them belonging to the world of _you had to be there. _He tries not to dwell on the fact that he wasn’t – he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there.

But you tell him, and he listens, and he laughs, laughs like he hasn’t laughed in a long time, and suddenly it’s the next day wholly and completely. The birds chirp and that’s how Flip knows he’s home without a doubt, resolutely – Vietnam didn’t have these birds.

“I was thinking,” You say, pressed so close to him on the couch, cheeks hurting from laughing like you haven’t done in a long time, “Of visiting the station today. Letting the guys know you’re home.”

“Yes.” Flip responds right away, the realization of his friends hitting him like a ton of bricks. “Yes, I want to see them.”

“Can I make you breakfast?” You ask, and his stomach growls, grumbles and groans, and you smile, take that for a yes.

When you sit him at the table he feels like he’s in limbo, like he’s never left and has been gone for a hundred years. The table is the same as it’s always been, the counters and the fridge and the stove and the oven all the same. The sink is the same and the walls are the same and the window is the same.

So why does it feel so different?

He catches his reflection in the glass of a vase filled with fresh flowers, wildflowers from the garden.

He doesn’t like what he sees. He feels old.

His facial hair has kind of gotten out of control, he thinks, staring at his reflection, trying to avert his eyes from his own judgmental gaze. It’s wild, wiry, it’s not terribly attractive. He doesn’t know how you can look at him so lovingly, so happily, when he looks like a man crazed.

“Ketsl?” He asks, and you rush to face him, rush to give him whatever he might want, might need.

“Yeah honey?” You respond, abandoning the pan on the stovetop to kneel at his feet, not wanting to overwhelm him.

He’s already overwhelmed.

“Before we go to the station, could you clean me up?” He asks, runs a hand over his goatee and sighs real deep. “I’d do it but…”

He doesn’t need to tell you that he’s afraid of his hands shaking while he holds the razor, afraid of accidentally cutting himself and losing it. He’s so afraid of losing it.

Has he already lost?

“Of course I’ll do it.” You say, sincere and so in love, eager to help. “After breakfast, we’ll shower and I’ll trim you right up.”

He blushes, holds your hand, kisses the fingertips there, and you playfully scratch under his chin, playfully tug on his ears.

“Thank you.” He smiles softly, suddenly shy, but you’re not having it.

You kiss him all over, smooch the sides of his nose, big smacks that have him laughing.

“Of course,” You say over and over again, “Of course.”

Because it’s not something you would even think twice about doing, and he knows this. It’s second nature to you, wanting to be there for him.

His heart soars.

“I love you.” He says, can’t get enough of saying it, can’t can’t can’t, so he says it again.

“I love you more, my handsome man.” You tug on his ear and he blushes, “Even when you’re scruffy, you’re my handsome man.”

He smiles and you smile back, until the smell of something on the stovetop burning reaches his nostrils.

“What’s that smell?” He asks, before things go dark.

* * *

Eric calms at the sound of your voice, and Flip wonders what you’re saying, what you’re talking about. The kid stares out into the jungle, has to squint from the heat of the fire.

Flip wonders. He knows he’ll listen later, listen as soon as they land – but then anxiety spikes.

What if he doesn’t land?

What if they’re another sitting duck in the sky, another bird that comes crashing down? So many helicopters have been shot down.

Flip has to resist the urge the rip the earbuds out of Eric’s head, suddenly so possessive of you – he doesn’t think he can bear it if he dies, and someone else gets to hear your voice.

But he doesn’t, he fires.

And the bombs drop, and the jungle burns.

A kid named Sam is the first one to notice it, the smell.

“Someone cookin’ bacon down there?” He asks in his thick Southern drawl, from Arkansas or Alabama, one of those. Flip didn’t bother keeping track anymore, so many kids kept coming and going.

He can’t possibly keep track, not with all of them dying.

Was it even worth getting attached, getting invested in any of them? He didn’t know.

But through all those thoughts Flip frowns, because he’s right, it _does _smell like bacon, like it’s been left on the stove too long, like it’s burning.

He looks in horror down at the bright orange sea beneath him, if he looks hard enough, he thinks he can see the tops of houses, straw things burned down to a crisp. If he looks hard enough, if he looks through the trees and the blazing roaring fires, he can see people running for their lives, can see them tiny like ants as he shoots and shoots the machine gun like he’s been told.

And dread washes down the back of his neck, freezes him, finger squeezed tight on the trigger when he realizes, when he figures it out.

If he looks hard enough, he can hear the screams of men and women and children burned alive. Scorched flesh and agony, smoke stinging, smell turning all of their stomachs at the abject horror of what they’re doing.

The smell hits their noses all at once as the helicopters pass by, and no amount of your soothing words can stop Eric from throwing up over the side of the Huey.

He’s not alone, they’re all like that, all except Flip, who doesn’t have the luxury of leaving the gun.

He hates himself for firing, hates the government for making him do it.

He has to close his eyes, screams too loud, too loud.

He can’t tell if they’re his or not.

* * *

He’s out of his seat, bolting for the bathroom before you know what’s happening.

It’s too much, it’s all at once, it’s all-consuming, the stench. That familiar stench, he’s sick, he’s retching into the toilet, heaving up nothing. He’s crying, all of a sudden he’s crying, and he wants to scream – he wants to scream and rage and throw a fucking fit as that smell curls into the back of his throat and stings his eyes and he’s surrounded by fire and rage and pain again.

You’re running in after him, latching yourself to his back, trying to ground him, trying to bring him off a brink of something, not knowing what. You didn’t know, didn’t know what went wrong, Flip isn’t telling you. He’s just hoarse and coughing and retching into the toilet, knees shattering underneath his frame as he clings to the porcelain bowl for dear life, as you cling to him.

There’s no words for this, to describe this, you don’t know, it kills you that you don’t know. It kills Flip that he can’t explain it, not when napalm explosions burn behind his eyelids, not when he’s coughing on smoke that isn’t there, not when he’s breathing in that smell that smell that smell.

“You’re okay, you’re safe.” You tell him, trying your best to remain calm, knowing he can’t handle any outbursts right now, knowing he can’t, “You’re home. You’re home with me, you’re safe.”

Maybe if you say it enough, he’ll believe it.

Everything is spinning, he can’t tell, doesn’t know where he is. He sees tile flooring and ferns at the same time, why is everything so green? He feels your hands on him and he knows that’s what’s real – but is it?

“I – I’m – ” Flip’s hyperventilating, and he’s crying, tears staining his face, staining the bowl of the toilet, and you hold him tight, wrap your arms around him.

He panics for a moment, afraid you’re the enemy, afraid you’re going to kill him, but the kisses on his back that you put there bring him back, pull him out. You’re the only one who would kiss his back, you’re the only one.

“You’re home. You’re not in the jungle, you’re in the bathroom. Our bathroom. You’re safe. You have to breathe.” You chant like it’s a prayer, repeat it over and over in a gentle tone, so gentle with him. “You have to breathe.”

He feels like he’s going to shatter, feels like he’s going to explode, like he’s going to burn burn burn. What’s that smell?

He knows that smell.

“I’m sorry,” He sobs, over and over, and you kiss his back now drenched with sweat. “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t know what he apologizes for, if it’s the killing, the burning, the fires, the destruction, or if it’s the fear can’t place, the outburst he can’t control. It’s got its claws in him deep, so deep.

You hold him tight, and bring him out. Pull him back out.

“You’re okay, you’re safe with me I promise. I _promise_.” You say, a steady anchor even though you’re scared shitless.

You can’t let him know that, can’t let him see how scared you are – you don’t want him to think you’re scared of him. You’re not, you’re not scared of him, you’re terrified for him.

He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and turns to face you, buries his face in your neck.

You hold him and kiss his forehead, he’s drenched in sweat.

“We’re going to shower, okay? You need to shower.” You can’t have him sitting in his own sweat and sick, you won’t.

Flip nods, tries to get himself under control, tries tries tries.

When he nods, you nod too, stand up and turn the faucet on, pull the tab so the water sprays from the showerhead above. You open the window, turn on the exhaust fan, try to air out the room.

As he stands up on shaky legs and the water warms, you bolt into the kitchen, grab the pan that had the forgotten crisps of breakfast burning, the bacon and eggs and hashbrowns. That’s the smell, you realize, and suddenly you hate it, you hate the kitchen, hate yourself for being so stupid. You fling open the windows, take the whole pan and run it to the garbage outside, throw the whole fucking thing away.

You’ll buy a new pan, new spatula, you don’t give a shit. You never want to see that again, you’ll never cook bacon again.

Not if it does this to your man, to your Flip.

When you come back inside, Flip’s naked, has his clothes folded on the counter. He reaches for you but you hesitate, you pull your clothes off first and throw them in the corner of the room, afraid the smell has lingered on the fabric, has stained the fibers.

Only once you’re naked you embrace him, let him yank you into his arms. The water from the shower is steaming up the bathroom, and you reach over to draw a heart on the mirror, right around the reflection of Flip’s face.

“You’re safe.” You tell him one more time, and he nods, he believes you.

You search his eyes and you find them clear, he’s there, he believes you.

* * *

The helicopters begin to descend, and Flip can’t help but think they’re crazy. They’re fucking crazy for going there, for being in this country.

The kids are all sitting down, legs swinging over the side of the helicopter as they fire their own machine guns unto the village below them, because it is a village, not just a jungle. It’s never just the jungle, it would seem.

They don’t belong here, how can they be winning? They can’t be, not like this.

You don’t fight wars like this.

The men in the platoon all get themselves ready to land. They load and reload their guns. Some pray out loud, some sit silently and stare at the sky. Everyone has their hand over their mouth, everyone is gagging at the stench.

The wind whips it up, carries it up into their faces, and Flip thinks he’s going to hell for this, they all are.

Eric sees, just as Flip saw. Eric can tell he’s losing his nerve, so he gives him an earbud.

He hands it to Flip with wide eyes, terrified eyes, eyes that ask questions Flip doesn’t have answers for.

Flip accepts it, his heart thudding wildly, and tries his best to block out everything but the sound of your voice. It’s soft and sweet and gentle and not at all like the chaos around him not at all like the death and destruction he causes, he takes part in. You’re so much more gentle and human than half these monsters, the pilots who laugh at the explosions, the ones who give the orders with glee in their smiles.

Flip doesn’t know how anyone can smile, like this.

Everyone is shouting, but no one can hear, not over all the noise, not through the roar of the engine and machine gun fire, not through the screams and the explosions and the sounds of trees cracking, bending over backwards too far until they snap.

He doesn’t even know what you’re saying, can’t really process the meaning of the words you’re speaking, even though they’re right in his ear.

He thinks he catches something, a fragment, through the chaos before they’re landing, thinks he hears an

‘_I love you._’

* * *

The shower is a blessing, hot water, scalding hot, scrubbing away the last legs of his fear.

“Come on, let’s clean up.” You say, and he feels like he could cry from the way you speak to him, the way you talk to him like he’s normal, like he’s not crazy. He didn’t know what he would do if you thought he was crazy, after everything else if you thought he had lost it.

It’s purifying, the water. He sighs as it darkens his hair, as it loosens the muscles in his shoulder.

When the water runs down his legs, it runs down clear. No pink, no red, no black of soot or brown dirt. No green.

Clear.

He now knows why so many faiths, religions, creeds all use water. He knows now.

He can’t remember the last time he showered in something other than a river, water that was truly clean, not just fresh.

Suddenly, it seems like the most important thing in the world to touch you, to cleanse you of his nightmares, of the tears he pressed into your skin. He washes your hair, takes his time. He did this for you every day, once upon a time. He did this for you now, and it was just like then.

His hands didn’t even shake, for once. The relief in his chest was almost enough to make him dizzy, when he realized his hands weren’t shaking.

He scrubs your scalp with shampoo, lathers and foams it up, laughs to himself about how you look. He breaths deeply, breaths in the orange and bergamot, a smell that is uniquely you. The perfume of it fills his lungs and he’s at peace again completely, once he has you rinse your hair.

You in turn, wash his body.

He lets his eyes close, lets himself simply feel the way your hands glide over his skin, the way the bath brush makes soothing circles across his chest and his back. He feels more and more like himself with every circle of the bristly brush, with every foamy sudsy pass of your hands.

He ducks to kiss you right under the spray, because he has to, has to show his thanks somehow.

You kiss him back, in in that kiss you tell him of course, of course you’ll do this for him.

You’ll do anything for him.

When the hot water has run out and the shower is over, the two of you wrap yourselves in soft white towels. The fabric is soothing on his skin, and Flip revels in it.

You sit on the counter, spread your legs enough that he can stand in between them as you search the medicine cabinet for the shaving kit.

He only wants a trim, so that’s what he’ll get, you think with a smile as you fish out the small scissors and the tweezers. Flip’s goatee had a habit of growing kind of erratically, it always made you huff out a little laugh, random hairs popping up nowhere near the rest of them. 

Flip’s mesmerized by the way you look, the light coming in from the bathroom window that’s still open from earlier. It’s late enough in the morning now that the sky is a beautiful blue filled with white fluffy clouds. The light is buttery and warm, and catches on your skin making you glow in a way he was sure only existed in dreams.

When you pluck one of his hairs and he winces, he knows it’s real.

The thought makes him smile, which makes you smile.

“You gotta be careful,” You tell him with a grin as you pluck another one, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re so beautiful.” Flip sighs, and you blush.

God, how he missed that blush.

But it’s true, you’re gorgeous sitting there on the counter, your hair wrapped up in a towel in a way that Flip still doesn’t really understand. You’re gorgeous with those little silver scissors in your hand as you wait for him to relax his mouth so you can clip away some of the length of his mustache.

The corner of his mouth twitches from how it tickles, and you grin.

“You’re my favorite person, you know that?” You tell him, and he nods, crinkles his nose as you pluck another hair. “I’m sorry, I won’t ever make that again.”

He knows what you mean, and he nods. He sighs.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” he admits, and that truth scares him, makes him angry. “It’s frustrating, I don’t know what that was, what happened.”

You’re quiet for a little while as you trim the goatee, as you comb through the mustache and the beard, as you smooth in some oil so it doesn’t go all frizzy.

“I know you don’t want to tell me about it, but do you think maybe you might be comfortable talking to someone else?” You ask softly, carefully, not wanting to upset him.

He frowns, but you don’t see it because you’re putting the shaving kit away, rinsing the stuff down the sink.

“That’s not true.” He shakes his head, and you look at him with soft eyes.

“Hm?” You ask, lost in thought as water goes down the drain.

“I don’t not want to tell you.” He explains, fiddles with the star around your neck, “I want to tell you everything. I just don’t have the words, not right now. I don’t know how to say it, there’s so much.”

You’re thoughtful for a moment, always so thoughtful, and he looks just past you to the sight of him in the mirror.

Cleaned up and showered like this, he recognizes himself. Your hands did that to him, and he finds he just has to kiss them again, shower them with love and gratitude.

If he had the energy to sink to his knees then and there, he would, but he doesn’t, so he can’t.

He’s so exhausted, all of a sudden. A whole night of no sleep, and the smell of burnt bacon makes him exhausted. Go fucking figure.

“You don’t have to tell me anything all at once.” You say, reading his mind, because you have to be some kind of mind reader, he thinks, “But I need to know how to help you, how to avoid things like that. I don’t want you to ever have that again, if I can help it.”

“I don’t know what else there is, I don’t know.” He whispers, hating that he has to admit it, hating that he doesn’t know how to make this easier for either of you.

“Okay.” You nod, understanding, always so understanding. You let him kiss your fingertips and he could almost weep against them. He doesn’t, he doesn’t have any more tears, but you feel it anyway. “We don’t have to go to the station, if you don’t want. We can just stay in bed.”

“No, no I want to. I want to see everyone.” Flip says, and you smile, proud of him.

His heart soars at that smile.

“Let me remake breakfast? We’ll have something simple, cereal. I got the cereal you like, I’ve been eating it.” You blush, and Flip can’t help but tease you.

“Oh yeah?” He had always been fighting with you about his cereal, and you roll your eyes, already ready for an ‘I told you so.’

“Yeah – I have to add sugar though, it’s so bland!” You defend your tastes and he laughs, and you laugh, and he picks you off the counter and walks the both of you to the bedroom.

It doesn’t matter that his entire body is sore or that his legs are jello, it doesn’t matter. He’s got you in his arms, he’s going to visit his friends at his job that’s all still there, all waiting for him. Nothing matters anymore, at least he tries to tell himself that.

“It’s delicious just the way it is.” Flip says, and you throw a pair of underwear at him, blush crimson as he tosses it aside and tackles you instead.

“Gimme a kiss?” You ask, and this one is different, this one is hot and slow as he licks into your mouth, as he lets a hand sneak down between your legs.

You fall apart for him, and he takes everything you give him, gives it right back.

When you gasp into his mouth, he forgets about everything, just for a while.

But a while is enough, when it’s with you.


	4. Riot

_I was not a combat soldier,_   
_So, I was relatively safe, unless_   
_Our helicopter was shot at, unless_   
_Our jeep hit a land mine, unless_   
_Our base camp was rocketed, unless_   
_The enemy breached the perimeter._   
_We were, after all, in a war zone._

_– Unknown _

Flip sits in one of the only bases they have, reading a newspaper in a language he doesn’t speak. He’s mostly in it for the distraction, makes up his own crossword as he sips his beer.

He’s in a club, really. What a weird place, he thinks, a club. It’s dark and damp and entirely made of straw, but it’s a club. There’s music playing off a crackling radio, surprisingly good signal for where they are in the middle of nowhere. Flip’s got his feet propped up on the table and the toe of his boots sway back and forth to the rhythm of it. For whatever reason, they’re playing swing music, even though it’s the 70s. Well, just barely, anyway.

The booze flows and the soldiers drink it.

Some of them drink too much.

Some don’t drink at all, and Flip commends them for that. He doesn’t think he could – doesn’t think he would want to get through this thing sober, this war.

He’s not the only one who takes notice of a boy – because really that’s what he is, a boy – stealing a spot at the bar, sidling up and asking only for a coca-cola. They notice and they snicker and they frown, and they conspire.

Flip knows what they’re going to do, and he’s already rolling his eyes, already returning to the newspaper he can’t understand.

“Hey new kid!” One of the older guys shouts, getting the attention of a brand new recruit, fresh-faced bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Flip gives him all of a month before that cheerful nature goes away, is hardened by the reality of war. He hates that he thinks it, but he thinks it nonetheless.

“Yeah?” The boy asks, sounding very much like he’s trying to be nonchalant, and failing.

They all wind up surrounding him, and Flip watches carefully from him spot in the back of the club, watches in case he needs to go break up anything. It’s not that he doesn’t have friends among those people, it’s just that he’s only going to be here for a couple more months, his year coming to an end, and he figures it’s better just to get through it with your head down and try not to get killed.

“What’s your name?” They ask, and the boy puffs his chest out in a way that makes Flip roll his eyes once again.

“Eric Costell.” He tells them, and they laugh.

“Well Cost-ell,” The older guy with a big mustache and a shaved head crosses his arms menacingly, “Looks like you ain’t been informed on the way things work around here.”

“Oh yeah?” Eric asks, “And how do they work?”

Flip has to admit, the kid’s got guts, to talk like that to someone like that. The other men all mumble to themselves in an agreement of Flip’s own assessment, maybe this kid isn’t just another pipsqueak.

“If you want to sit with us, you have to drink with us.” Mr. Mustache says, and Eric falters for a moment.

“I can’t.” He winces, making them all jeer.

“What was that, rookie?” Someone else asks, probably the bartender, Flip doesn’t know.

“’M not old enough to drink.” Eric says like he’s ashamed, and Flip does look up now, does take interest, because that’s not fucking fair.

“But old enough to go to war, ain’t that fuckin’ something?” The bartender sucks his teeth and shakes his head, and all of the men sober up enough to realize just how young this kid is. “None of us is gonna tell on you, so here – drink up.”

Something filled with flames slides across the bar counter, and Eric catches it with ease. He peers into it and Flip knows what’s coming, he knows.

“What is it?” Eric asks, and they just laugh, because of course the kid wouldn’t know.

“That right there is what we call The Devil – straight rum and a little fire. You down all that? You can sit with us.” They say, and bless him, Eric lifts the glass to his lips and chugs.

They all watch, stunned, as Eric downs the last of the rum. Maybe he didn’t know what the hell he was getting himself into, didn’t know so he couldn’t be prepared for the worst, but in the blink of an eye the drink is gone, and Eric is shouting from the burn.

The men all burst into cheers and douse the kid in beer, whistle and clap their hands, an initiation bravely competed.

Sooner than the glass is set back on the bar counter, have the men all broken out into song. Flip watches Eric’s face carefully, watches watches watches as his smile starts to fade when he listens to the words, the morbid lyrics that those men are so blind to now:

“You’re goin’ home in a body bag, doo-dah, doo-dah, you’re goin’ home in a body bag, all the doo-dah day!”

* * *

He savors it, the feeling of you.

A man possessed he can’t help but fuck you with such intensity as this.

He wants to visit the station yes, but first – first he must have his fill of you; he’s so in love, so grateful, so fucking turned on by the way you look, taste, smell feel. He’s in love, and he’s desperate, and you give him everything all the time. You’re giving him everything now.

“I missed this – so much – oh, oh (Y/N).” Flip can’t help but hold you too harshly, grip on you destined to leave bruises in its wake.

You’re an angel underneath him, with the way your wet hair splays across the towel covered pillow.

“Flip please, it’s good – so so good.” You’re moaning, high and loud, and it’s music to his ears, a symphony of sounds made by him, for him.

The undulation of his hips wreck you, and he can feel just how tight you’re clenching around his cock, can feel the spasms of your cunt all around him as he makes you come, as your mouth drops into a perfect O, as you cling to him as your orgasm ripples through you.

Behind your eyelids are dancing stars, they rattle and shake with the force of his thrusts. He presses kiss after kiss in between your tits, licks at the sweat that’s collected there, and he comes, not soon after. He lets his arms give out just a little so he comes crashing down on top of you, sandwiching your body between his chest and the mattress.

This really beat jacking off all by himself in the middle of the night, that was for fucking sure, he thought with a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” You ask with a grin, cracking an eye and craning your face up towards him.

You loop your arms around his neck and he rolls you both over, trying his best to stay inside you, to keep you filled for as long as he can get away with.

“I feel drunk.” He replies, because he does, and he laughs again.

It feels good to laugh, he thinks, even if it’s because he’s out of it. Everything is hazy and warm, floaty.

“Oh really, all because of me?” You muse, wiggling your hips and making him groan at the feeling. 

“Yeah, you and this pussy.” He bites at your throat as he pushes his cock further into you in a half-hearted thrust, really too tired to do much more than be silly, cock starting to go soft. You moan and gasp anyway, and it makes Flip smile.

“Are you _sure_ you want to go in today? We can always go tomorrow.” You try being cheeky, but Flip shakes his head, much to your mock disappointment.

“No, I want to get it over with. The sooner I see everyone and let them know I’m back, the better.” He pulls out of you and you wince, feeling his come slide out of you. You’d talk to him about that later, he knew. But you look so beautiful that he can’t help it, feels entirely completely whole when he’s lying next to you like this, with the bright sunshine of late morning making the room warm and buttery. “Besides, then we won’t have to worry about them coming ‘round and interrupting.”

You nod, and flop over onto your back, chest heaving just a bit. Flip reaches over and grabs his towel from the shower, and wipes you both down, takes extra extra care to be gentle with you in a way that has your stomach fluttering from the touch.

He forgets sometimes, that while he’s been away and all alone, so too have you.

You may not have been in constant peril, but there was something almost as dangerous as the loneliness that he can tell has seeped into your bones, the way you’ve become touch-starved. He has two years to make up for it, because he knows – he _knows _– that you haven’t gotten affection like this from anyone in his absence. He knows that you wouldn’t have wanted it from anyone else, but him.

Now he’s home, and he has you now, can hold you close and press kisses all over you and can fuck you and laugh with you and and and, but the damage is still there.

You turn over to face him once you’re both clean, reach out and tuck some of his still-damp hair behind his exposed ear as he faces you too.

“They’ve missed you, they really have.” You say, meaning the boys down at the station, and that fills him with a strange sort of relief. 

“Jimmy take good care of you like I asked?” He asks lowly, twining his fingers with yours, the two of you just holding hands and comparing the lengths of your fingers lazily.

“You bet.” You reply, chuckling to yourself a little. Flip wants to ask what that little laugh means, wants to hear the stories that you’re bound to have, but you continue, “And Harry and Bridges. You know even Landers offered his help?”

“No way.” Flip’s eyebrows raise in disbelief, but you nod as if to say, _I know, right?_

“Way,” You laugh, “I spent a lot of time at the station but, after a while…”

The laugh trails away, and he remembers one of your tapes, the way you said seeing his empty desk has become too painful. He can’t imagine it, he can’t. At least in ‘Nam there were no reminders of you. Here, there were reminders of him everywhere.

He’s amazed at your strength, at your ability to not go crazy. He would have.

“I know.” He says, brings your hand up to his lips to kiss the knuckles there, press them to his cheek. “I’m home now.”

“Yeah you are.” You grin, all trace of sadness forgotten in the novelty of having him close once more, smiling as you straddle him to wrestle, “If you ever leave me like that again I’m gonna kill you!”

“Good, no one else is allowed to.” Flip is laughing, and you’re laughing, and for a minute things feel like they’re going to be okay.

* * *

They’re headed off somewhere, god knows where, He doesn’t ask too many questions anymore. He wonders how long until he can hear from you again, wonders when the next mail drop is going to be. He’s starting to crave your voice.

You were so fucking smart, to think of the idea for the tapes. He had cried the first time you sent them, cried when he heard you talking about everything and nothing, just talking. He wished he could talk back to you in real time, wished he could call you, hear you laugh.

He missed your laugh, desperately.

They’re walking through the jungle, soft calls of birds and chirp of insects the only noise for miles. The team before them came through and cleared everything out, killed all the enemies, so there was little to fear for in that particular moment.

Flip was glad for moments like those, it gave him some time to think.

“Hi.” A voice asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Can I walk with you?”

Flip turned to see the face of young Eric, who was smiling at him despite the gap in his teeth. Strangely, Flip thought that was brave, insecure about his own set of pearly whites.

Eric was waiting expectantly for an answer, and Flip found himself nodding, for whatever reason.

“Sure thing.” He replies, and the boy sticks his hand out for a shake, like he must’ve seen his father do once upon a time.

“I’m Eric.” He offers, and Flip takes it, shuffles his gun onto his other arm to do so.

“Flip, good to meet you.” Flip returns the introduction, sets his eyes back to the path in front of them as their platoon walks and walks and walks.

“It’s great to meet you too! I was talking to some of the other guys and they all say you’re a real great shot.” Eric beams, and Flip finds it flattering, if a little sad.

“Yeah, expert.” He says, points his index finger out like a pistol and clicks the trigger of his thumb. It makes the kid laugh.

“No shit?” He shakes his head, “That’s crazy. I’ve never shot anything before now, had to learn just for this.”

Flip’s eyebrows shoot up, and something parental and protective inside him flares up. He changes his mind, he gives the kid a month before he’s dead.

“Really?” Flip asks, because he just has to know, “Where are you from?”

“Colorado.” The boy replies sheepishly, like he’s been scolded, and Flip thinks if he gets one more surprising piece of information he’s going to have to wake up, because life isn’t as coincidental as this.

“No fuckin’ kidding, Colorado Springs.” He says, and Eric laughs once again.

“Aurora!” He says, and damn, he could throw a skipping stone and probably hit Eric’s house.

Well, maybe not, but still.

Flip wishes he had a cigarette.

They keep walking.

“Oh well that makes sense, city boy.” Flip can’t help but tease, and Eric sighs dramatically. Flip has half a mind to tell him to keep quiet, that there could be people listening, waiting, watching.

But they step over dead bodies of fallen enemies on their path, and Flip thinks better of it.

“That’s what they all keep saying.” Eric replies, before chuffing up like some big shot, “But I think I proved them wrong with The Devil.”

“Yeah I saw that.” Flip mutters, and Eric’s expression falls at the response, “Hey, just so you know, you don’t have to do everything they tell you to.”

Eric nods, lets out a small smile.

“I know, but I wanted to fit in. I know what these kind of guys are like.” He says with enough wisdom in his voice that Flip has to wonder what he was doing here and not in college, “You been here long?”

“Only a couple months, but this is my second tour.” Flip explains, felt the need to explain himself to this kid.

He didn’t know, there was just something about him.

Eric’s eyebrows shot up, and for the first time he looked truly surprised.

“You came back?” He asks incredulously, making Flip shrug one shoulder.

“Not my choice.” He responds, and Erics nods.

“I didn’t think it was any of our choice.” He says.

They keep walking.

* * *

It takes all of three seconds for people to start recognizing him, when you and Flip enter the station.

He barely has any time to soak in the atmosphere, the familiarity of the ringing phones and garbled voices on the walkie-talkies all overlapping, before someone lets out an excited shout.

“Detective Zimmerman!” Phyllis, the secretary near the lobby drops her coffee in her excitement to rush over to the two of you, wasting no time to wrap her short arms around his wide middle.

Her declaration of his return has the entire station practically swarming, a big crowd of beat cops and detectives alike, all shaking his hand or patting him on the back, cheering and whistling, applause just for him.

He doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve their applause, but he doesn’t have a chance to tell them that.

“Is that Flip?” He hears someone ask, and just like yours, he’d recognize that voice anywhere when it calls out an excited, “Flip!”

“Jimmy!” Flip finds himself laughing as his best friend, lifelong best friend Jimmy Creek, cuts through the crowd, jumps onto him with happy tears.

“No fucking way!” Jimmy is beaming, shouting and hollering and laughing, and Flip won’t let go, not even as they shake and smack each other’s sides, “No! Fucking! Way!”

Flip’s cheeks hurt by the time he finally puts his friend down, the two of them clasping each other’s shoulders and circling one another like two eager puppies who haven’t seen each other in a long time.

“You let your hair grow!”

“You got massive, were you always this big?”

“Copying my goatee I see.”

“Well someone had to step up to fill your big shoes.”

They went back and forth until Flip’s cheeks started to hurt from smiling, until everything quieted down enough for Landers, Flip’s rival, arch enemy for all intents and purposes, to stick his hand out in a sincere greeting.

“I’ll be fuckin’ damned, welcome home Zimmerman.” He says, and Flip doesn’t waste any time shaking it, putting all the past troubles behind him.

He’s realized that arch enemies really aren’t that serious, in the grand scheme of life. Not really.

“It’s good to be home.” Flip replies, and you’re getting all choked up again just from the sight, just from seeing him here surrounded by people who love him, people who care about him.

He holds your hand in his own as the old ladies in the station kiss your cheek and congratulate you for his return, as Phyllis reaches up and tugs on his ear.

“You had us worried sick you piece of shit.” She scowls entirely playfully, and Flip waves her off with a big grin.

“Who’re you calling a piece of shit you old hag?” He shoots back, and she just laughs and laughs gives him one more squeeze just because she can, just because they all can now that he’s home.

The crowd parts like the red sea and everyone goes quiet. Flip turns to look at what’s caused the disturbance, when he sees a familiar head of salt and pepper hair.

“What’s going on here?” Bridges demands, voice booming, imposing.

Flip suddenly feels like he’s fucked up a case, is about to be scolded.

“Chief I – ” He starts, but Bridges holds a hand up and gives him a stern look.

“You better get over here right now…and give me a hug.” He orders, and really, who is Flip to disobey?

He would never admit it, not in a million years, but Bridges had always felt like a father to Flip, and that hug means more to him than he could probably articulate.

“Hey chief.” Flip whispers, as he and Bridges pat one another on the back, a strong embrace.

“Welcome home Phil.” Bridges pulls back and looks him in the eye, gives his shoulder a healthy shake, “We’re glad you made it back in one piece.”

“Yeah you and me both.” Flip laughs, and the whole station laughs too, and you’re just right by his side crying enough to make everyone get misty-eyed, everyone who isn’t already in tears that is.

“You must just be thrilled.” Jimmy says, nudging you with his elbow, and you nod with a wet smile, glancing up at your man.

“Oh you know I am – I tried convincing him to hold off until tomorrow so I could have him all to myself a little while longer.” You wink, and another round of whistles and cheers erupt.

“I don’t blame you, it was a long two years.” Bridges nods understandingly.

“Yeah you’re telling me.” Flip says, and makes sure to look at everyone as he pulls you close to him, “Thank you, you guys, this was a really warm welcome.”

There’s another round of applause again, and people go back to their lives, back to their work. How funny, he thinks, that this was the greatest interruption of their day, probably of their week? He almost envies them for how they can go right back to it, right back to their desks.

Flip looks at you and looks at Bridges and Jimmy and the station and he doesn’t even think about it when he says,

“I was wondering when I’m expected back at work.”

You frown, they all frown, like he’s said something wrong.

“Flip you just got back.” You want more time – no, need more time, with him.

When he had gone to war the first time he took off an entire month before he went back to the station, and that hadn’t been nearly as intense as this deployment, not nearly as harrowing. The last time he had stayed with you and you’d spent all your time in the garden or the bedroom or the mountains.

He saw the worry in your eyes, that he maybe didn’t want to be with you, that he wanted to run right back to the station and leave those sun drenched kisses behind, but that was far from it. He just wanted some semblance of a normal routine again, that was all. He wishes he knew how to explain that with just a squeeze of his hand in your own.

He tries anyway.

“No I know, I know.” He says, and he looks at you and you get it, somehow you get it, “I just meant when is standard?”

“Whenever you want. Just give us a week heads-up, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.” Bridges trails off, scratches the back of his neck, “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Flip frowns, they haven’t replaced him, have they?

Bridges looks at you and nod just the slightest bit, and Flip wants to know what’s going on.

“You’re okay to handle guns and all that still?” Bridges asks and Flip almost wants to sigh of relief.

“Guns have never been the issue.” Flip reassures him.

“Good to know.” Bridges says with as much of a smile as Flip is ever going to get out of him. “Just because you know, we hear stories sometimes, soldiers coming back, going beserk. Gunfire sets them off, makes them crazy.”

“Nah you don’t have to worry about that with me, promise.” Flip replies, and all the weird tension evaporates.

Jimmy elbows his way back into the conversation and you smile as you watch how excited he is to talk to Flip, finally _talk _to him after all this time.

“Jesus we really missed you you know? Basketball’s not the same – the fuckin’ firefighters beat us last year and they are so damn smug about it.” Jimmy rolls his eyes but Flip isn’t really paying attention.

“Hey, where is everyone?” He asks, and everyone goes real quiet.

With the excitement of the day died down, Flip can tell there’s not nearly as many people as there normally are in the station. Too many empty desks and not nearly enough people roaming around. You, Jimmy, and Bridges all look at one another, as if to silently determine who is going to speak first.

“Big protest downtown, the city’s asked us to keep cops stationed. You know, just in case things get out of hand.” Bridges says, and you immediately sigh in frustration.

“I don’t like it.” You say right away with a shake of your head, and Flip frowns.

“Protest for what?” He asks, looking at you.

He always looks at you.

“The war.” You reply simply, and he’s stunned.

“What, still?” There had been protests going on and on about the war since the turn of the decade, he thought that everyone had said all that they needed to say already.

“There’s some sort of debate going on, for the presidency. People have shown up to use the opportunity to talk about the war, you know, demonstrate.” You explained, and ah, he thinks, that would explain it.

“People aren’t happy. They’re really not happy, Flip.” Jimmy sighs and you’re practically simmering.

“I don’t think the cops should be there, with the tensions as they are I don’t think it’s a good idea and I’ve told Bridges that.” You say, the only person who could ever really get away with telling the chief of police what to do.

“Can we go down there?” Flip asks, and you cast your gaze down, and Flip wonders what the hell he missed, while he was gone.

“They’re not very kind, to the vets.” You whisper, and he has to pinch your chin between his fingers, has to bring it back up to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to get upset.”

“I’m just curious.” He says, leans down to kiss you softly, “Please?”

He wants to know the state of the world, wants to know what’s going on. He was gone for so long, he has so much catching up to do, he wants to know.

You have pain in your eyes, and Flip wants to know why.

* * *

“Say, what are you listening to?” Eric asks one evening, a month or so into them being friends.

Because that’s what they’ve become, somehow. Somehow through all of it, they’ve become pretty good friends.

It’s dark outside, and they’re all awake still, huddled by a very small fire, small enough that no one would see it, if they were looking. Flip’s got his headphones on, got the volume turned just loud enough that he can hear, but not too loud so that he can’t hear if something goes on around him.

He immediately clicks the play/pause button on the player, now that Eric’s here.

“Tapes, my wife sends them to me.” Flip holds up the cassette player, and Eric lights a cigarette from the flames of the small fire.

“What like music?” He asks, offers one to Flip.

Flip has never been more grateful for a light in a long long time.

He takes a drag and for the first time in months, his lungs are flooded with the all too familiar taste of nicotine and tar, and when he exhales it’s with a relief he hasn’t felt in ages.

“Yeah, and just her talking. She tells me about stuff going on at home, keeps me up to date with everything I’m missing.” He says, and he almost has half a mind to let him listen, but he decides not to. He’s protective, of you, of your voice. It’s the one thing he has sacred, and he doesn’t want to give it away just yet.

Maybe another day, maybe he’ll play the tapes that have the music, or the books that you read – but this one he wants to keep just for himself.

He thinks he sees a shooting star flit across the night sky.

“Do you miss her?” Eric asks, and for the first time since he left, Flip feels the tight sting of tears in his eyes.

“Like hell, kid.” He whispers, voice cracking just a little, “Like hell.”

Flip and Eric lay down, lay staring up at the stars in the night sky, and Flip looks for another one, makes a wish on it.

He wishes you’re okay, you’re safe.

“Do you got a picture of her?” Eric asks, and Flip is eager to show you off.

He fishes around in his jacket and pulls out the pocket watch that had been passed down to him, clicks it open and reveals the image of you.

“Yeah, that’s her,” Flip whispers, lets his finger trace the curve of your cheek, “That’s my (Y/N).”

Eric studies you for a moment, and when he looks up at Flip it’s with great admiration in his eyes.

“She’s really pretty.” He says, and Flip chuckles wetly.

“Yeah, she is. Don’t know why she married this ugly mug.” He teases, just trying to lift his own spirits.

Eric knows, and he laughs too, punches Flip lightly on the arm.

“Guess she must really love you, huh?” He grins, sticks the cigarette in the gap of his teeth.

“Yeah, she does.” Flip says softly as he carefully closes the watch, presses it against his chest, right over his heart. “Do you have anyone back home that you miss?”

Eric is silent for a moment, watching the stars. Flip wonders what he wishes for, when another one streaks across the inky black expanse of space.

“No, not really. Just my mama.” Eric says softly, “But I don’t think that counts.”

“Of course it counts. Never underestimate the love of your ma.” Flip shakes his head, “She send you letters?”

“Yeah, and my friends back home do too, but it isn’t the same as a wife.” Eric says, and well, Flip isn’t going to say he’s wrong.

“Nothing’s the same as that.” He agrees, the two of them smoking in companionable silence.

After a while, Flip thinks Eric’s fallen asleep, from the silence, from the way he breathes. Flip lets his own eyes close, lets himself just listen to the crackling sound of the fire, before he knows it’ll have to be put out. Someone is awake as a lookout, he knows, but it’s still too risky with them in the jungle like this.

It’s all too risky.

“What’s she like?” Eric asks, but Flip isn’t paying that close attention.

“Hm?” He asks, opening his eyes again.

“Your wife, what’s she like?” Eric asks again, and Flip hums to himself.

“You know how sometimes in your dreams you feel like you can do anything, be anything? How you’re flying high above the world and everything seems so small below you, like you’re walking on the clouds and there’s nothing but light and warmth and happiness? How everything just kind of feels good, and you’re laughing but you don’t know why?” 

“Uh huh.” Eric says, real soft.

“She’s like that.” Flip says, even softer.

Above them, another star shoots by.

* * *

You and Flip depart in the truck after saying goodbye to your friends, and are quiet on the drive downtown.

He parks the truck on a side street somewhere, and though you’re nowhere near the park where the big protest is being held, you’re already in the midst of the demonstration. There is a great parade of people going down main street, cars and bikes and pedestrians alike, all marching in time.

He helps you out of the truck and shuts the door behind you, grateful for the anonymity of the baseball cap he keeps on the dash, grateful for your closeness. There are some men in the familiar uniforms of a soldier who had just come back.

Some have their sleeves pinned back where their arms had been blown off, others are pushed in wheelchairs, legs rendered useless by bombs or gunshots or disease. Some are cleanshaven, some are scruffy, some still have bandages wrapped around their face, disfigured and torn to pieces. Flip feels his stomach sink, as he looks at them, looks at the wounds they carry. He is painfully aware of how lucky he is, painfully aware of how he came out of that war unscathed.

Did he? He wonders, did he really?

Better than those men, that’s for sure. Better than those who didn’t come out of it at all. 

And as Flip walks with his arm tightly wound around your waist, walks through the sea of angry signs and chanting voices, walks up and down the streets lined with hatred and disdain, one thing is made immensely clear: there would be no parades for men like him.

No banners to be waved, no cheering or applause to greet him, no champagne kisses or confetti like they had showered his father before him. He sees the pain and anger in their eyes, hears the insults they spray like acid, feels the movement in the Earth as feet stomp in time to songs of supposed peace – all while jeering and spitting at the men who just wanted to return home to their wives and mothers, men too young to have done any different, men too tired to stop them now.

He thinks of his uniform, wrinkled and discarded still on the floor of your bedroom, and wonders if he had worn it today, would there be rocks raining down on his head just as hard as those bullets had been?

The answer is yes, Flip finds. And while that cruel reality is one he now must live with, somehow, the look on your face breaks his heart more than anything else.

“Are you okay?” He asks, and you think that’s an absurd thing to ask, in the moment, how he can be so concerned with you, when it’s _him _they hate.

“It’s hard hearing them say all this awful shit.” You reply softly, and Flip doesn’t have a moment to reply when you whip your head around to the sound of sneakers and heels on pavement, rumble of the earth for an entire different reason, “Why are people running? Ow – hey!”

Someone runs right in between the two of you, and Flip loses his hold on your waist, watches as you get knocked down to the ground.

It’s like a dam has broken, and now all the people who had been walking in one direction are stampeding in the other, towards the two of you, splitting you up.

“(Y/N)!” Flip shouts, because he’s lost sight of you, can’t see your face anymore.

“Flip!” You scream, frantic, but he can’t see you – he can’t _see you _and he feels the cold familiar dread of terror grip his chest as he spins around and around, desperately seeking you.

But you’re not there, and Flip is caught in a sea of people, can’t see you, can’t hear your voice, and his breathing is out of control, too fast, too heavy, he can feel people pushing and shoving him, and he has to run along with them because he knows, he knows if he stands still he’ll be run over, and then he won’t have a chance of finding you at all.

* * *

Ash, dust, smoke.

Fire.

There’s so much fire.

He doesn’t know where he is, he’s scrambling, trying to find something sturdy he can lean up against. He trips over something, and crashes hard to the ground, his gun scattering away from him. Fuck fuck fuck, he reaches for it, manages to grab just the strap of it, manages to get back up until something – someone grabs his ankle.

He’s about to shake it off when he hears a cough, a horrible trembling cough.

“Flip!” It’s Eric, and he’s crying, on the verge of screaming, “Flip, please help!”

It’s too dangerous for them to be there, in the middle of the village as bullets and bombs rain down on the straw huts, as the enemy has caught up to them, as they’re killing everything in sight. It’s too dangerous for Flip to crouch down and hold this child, but that’s what he does.

“Hey, calm down, you have to calm down.” Flip says, trying to figure out what’s wrong, reaching for Eric’s hands – until he realizes.

He tries not to retch as his fist closes around the bloody end of a wrist.

Eric is shaking, convulsing, and Flip doesn’t know what to do.

“I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die.” He moans, cries out in pain, face covered in snot and tears and blood and dirt and and and.

Flip does the only thing he knows, picks the kid up and carries him somewhere safe, searches for somewhere safe. Eric’s too out of it to notice, to notice Flip running running running with him in his arms.

“You’re going to be okay, I promise – Eric! I promise.” He says, not sure if he’s telling the truth, not sure if this kid is going to make it. He tells him anyway, because the last thing he’ll do is let this kid give up hope.

He’d be damned, if he let this kid give up.

“Okay okay okay.” Eric chants, and Flip’s breathing in too much smoke, has to get low, they have to get low or else they’re both going to die.

He kicks the door of one of the small houses down, finds it blissfully empty, lays Eric down who immediately goes to cradle his wrist. Flip’s never seen that much blood, and he panics even though he tries not to let it show.

“How did this happen?” Flip asks, searching for something, anything in his bags, searching for his first aid kit. 

“I don’t – I don’t know.” Eric cries and cries, and Flip nods, tries to keep steady as he finds some gauze.

It’s not going to be enough, but it’s all he has, all they both have.

“You’ll be okay, just need to stop the bleeding” Flip talks him through it, talks and talks and talks because this kid is closing his eyes and he knows that if Eric closes his eyes, they’re not going to open again. “Hey – look at me, you have to stay awake okay?” He snaps his fingers, and Eric nods.

“Tell my mama I love her, if I die, you have to promise to tell my mama.” He cries, grabs Flip’s hand with his own. “Promise me.”

Flip stares at him hard, covers Eric’s hand with his other, gives it a bloody squeeze.

“You’re not going to die.” Flip says resolutely, like it’s fact, like it’s final, like he has any say in the matter.

The gauze isn’t enough, so he takes off his shirt, rips a long strip from the hem and wraps wraps wraps this kid’s wrist. They’re both sweating all over, sweating and covered in filth, but they can’t stay there forever.

“We need a fucking medic!” Flip shouts, screams, before hoisting Eric over his shoulder like he were some great fireman, before going back out into the fray.

Outside the flames roar up and Flip has to go back out there to shoot, but he can’t leave him, can’t leave Eric behind.

He won’t leave anyone behind.

* * *

Things happen in slow motion – or maybe that’s just you. Maybe you hit your head when you fell, maybe the world isn’t spinning at all, maybe it’s just you.

You scream for him, shout his name again and again, but it doesn’t do any good. There are too many other screams – how the fuck did it go so south so fast? You knew you didn’t want the cops there, you knew it would be a bad idea, but with tear gas in the air your eyes are stinging and you can’t see anyone, can’t see anything.

Your heart is beating too quickly, so quickly you’re almost afraid of a heart attack, terrified of dying without Flip. You’re so fucking scared in fact, that you don’t even realize it when you bump into someone, and you’re immediately apologizing before you can even register who it is.

She’s beautiful, young. Her hair is in a big afro and she wears a black leatherjacket, even though it’s the middle of summer. Her round glasses have a splattering of blood on them, from where she’s been knocked in the head, presumably by a cop.

“Are you alright?” You ask immediately, and the girl is so surprised that you asked, that she takes a moment to respond.

“Yes – yeah I’m okay.” She says, but you’re already fishing around in your purse for a handkerchief, a tissue, anything to offer her.

“You’re bleeding, here, please take this.” You tell her as you press a small square of cotton into her shaking palms, as you strain through the foggy air to search for someone who could help. “I don’t know where the paramedics are.”

“It’s okay, I’ve had worse.” The girl waves you off, but you shake your head.

“That doesn’t make it okay.” You refuse the handkerchief when she tries to give it back, “No, you keep it, I’ve lost my husband, I have to find him.”

“Good luck.” The girl says, and for a minute, you want to ask her her name, want to see if maybe she needs help finding someone too, but then she’s gone, running away.

“Thanks.” You say softly to yourself, before trying to think about where to even begin.

There’s nothing, nothing but the sounds of sirens and chanting, screaming as the protest turns more and more violent. All you can think about is your husband, where Flip is, if he’s okay, if he’s safe. Your feet carry you deeper and deeper into the streets, into the park, soft green grass crunching under your shoes.

“Hell no, we won’t go! Hell no, we won’t go!” Rings out through megaphones in a discordant amalgamation of sounds, a delay from not being properly in time.

You had to give it to the protesters, they never quit, not even when their knees were being taken out by police batons, not when they were pepper sprayed or hauled into the back of cars with flashing lights.

“Oh shit, oh shit – Flip!” You think you see him, think you see his baseball cap, and you run to him, run with open arms and a strong wave of relief floods through you when you grab his elbow, “Fuck – Flip!!”

“Are you lost?” The man asks, entirely too pleased to see you, and you realize very quickly he is not your man, not Flip at all, and you start to grow hysteric.

_Where is he where is he where is he? _

“Oh I’m sorry – I’m – I thought you were someone else.” You’re already trying to leave, but the man grips your elbow, yanks you back.

“Come on why don’t you come with me, huh?” He asks, and you can smell booze on his breath, even though it’s the middle of the day, even though there’s chaos all around.

“No no no please, let me go – ” You manage to wrestle out of his grip but only get a few steps before he’s grabbing the back of your shirt, and you punch him in the gut on instinct.

“Hell no, we won’t go! Hell no, we won’t go!” They keep chanting and chanting and you can almost feel yourself losing your mind, can feel the words in your brain, until this stranger backhands you across the face for hitting him, sends you stumbling down to the ground.

You’re in shock, and you’re about to scream when out of nowhere someone else’s fists are flying, knocking this stranger back and away, and you quickly stand up so you don’t get trampled in the chaos.

“Don’t you fucking touch her.” Flip has snapped, is beating the shit out of this guy, this random man who managed to split the corner of your mouth with the way he hit you, must have worn a ring or something to manage it.

“Flip!” You cry out in relief, try to pull your husband off of this man, not wanting him to get hurt. Now that you’ve found him, all that you want is to leave, all that you want is to go back home.

“I’ll kill you, I’ll _fucking _kill you for what you just did to her.” Flip’s screaming, red in the face and spitting, and not letting up, not stopping as his fists beat beat beat this man’s face into oblivion.

“Flip please – please let’s just go home.” You’re begging, but you can’t snap him out of it, you can’t.

You notice you’re close enough to the street to see news vans, more and more cops, more guns and cans of gas and you’re panicking in earnest now, now the chants have changed, now everyone has turned their attention to the

“The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” The protesters stick their middle fingers up, they sneer, they chant and yell and shout and laugh and scream and all your panic comes to a tipping point when you see the great green machines slowly make their way through the tear gas.

“Flip there are tanks, we have to go.” You say, and that gets through to him, that for whatever reason makes him drop this stranger, and with bloodied hands he takes yours gently, leads you through the crowd.

Wasn’t this supposed to have just been a peaceful protest? When did it become a riot? You don’t know, can’t tell, don’t care. You don’t care. All you want is to go home, to go back to your safe bedroom with your husband, with Flip.

He’s leading you expertly through the crowd and the park, until you’re at the edge of the tear gas, until you can breathe properly without coughing. It’s much less chaotic here, where it’s clear, where you can see. Flip is checking you frantically, trying to stop the bleeding on your lip, crushing you to him and holding you tight. You can’t imagine how he must be feeling, being separated from you like that.

You thank every one of your lucky stars that he found you.

“You’re okay , you’re okay, okay we’re going, I’m sorry – I’m sorry.” Flip just keeps apologizing, and you cup his face in your hands, kiss him deeply, so deeply, kiss him as people are being beaten and ruined not one hundred feet away.

You find you don’t care about them, still too shaken from being torn apart.

“It’s okay, let’s just get out of here.” You say, and Flip nods, leads you to the car.

He always had such a good sense of direction, your man.

You hold hands the entire ride back to the house, back to the nice manicured lawns of your neighborhood, beautiful houses silently existing together and yet with enough property between them that they can exist apart too.

It was a moment like that, that really made you appreciate the beauty of your home. Flip had bought it for the two of you to live in ages ago, and had transformed it from a bit of a shabby dwelling into a gorgeous house – into a home. It wasn’t lost on you that this was the first time the both of you pulled up to the house together in years.

Hand-laid brick in variegated shades of grey complimented the light grey tiles of the roof, which sat atop a beautiful cream colored second story with mustard colored trimmings and front door. You smiled at the little porch that Flip had built with Jimmy one summer, smiled at the green green green lawn that Flip used to always cut, smiled at the full trees that let sunlight dapple on the both of you as you walked up to the house.

How strange, to think of the events of the day, to think of the events of the past forty-eight hours, while unlocking the screen and front door. 

“Oh! Hold on, I need to check the mail.” You kiss Flip on the cheek, going back to the mailbox at the edge of the street. There’s not much, just the newspaper and a couple timely bills, but you frown slightly when there’s a small handwritten letter addressed to Flip. He hadn’t gotten any mail in quite some time, being away and all.

“Everything okay?” He asks, exhausted.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. There’s just something here for you.” You reply, trying to read the return address, only there isn’t one, but the stamp is from Colorado, so you figure it must be from someone you know.

Flip is waving you over, and you go right back to him, stepping through the threshold and letting out a big sigh of relief in the foyer. You try handing him the letter but he shakes his head, puts the stack of mail on the table by the entryway and simply holds you to him.

“I’ll look at it later,” He says, burying his face into your neck, cradling the back of your head, “You were right, we shouldn’t have gone.” He muffles into your skin, and you just sigh, hold him too.

“There’s no way you could have known it would turn out like this.” You whisper, your fingers curling in the hair at the base of his neck, hating the way he shakes.

“I feel sick,” He starts, all choked up, throat tight and you’re immediately soothing him, immediately kissing his cheek, trying to calm him as he hiccups, “For putting you in danger like that.”

“Hey, look at me.” You say, firmly but not unkindly. “You found me. You’ll _always_ find me.”

Flip nods, but he still cries, and you let him. Sometimes people just need to cry.

You think if anyone needs to, it’s Flip.

“Let me make you lunch?” You whisper, wanting to at the very least give him something small to smile about.

It works, and soon he’s chuckling, just at the absurdity of the day, at the rollercoaster of the day. It’s not even two p.m., he realizes as he checks the grandfather clock against the wall.

How can it only be barely two o’clock?

“Okay, yeah, lunch. Lunch is good.” He admits, as his stomach growls, not used to being able to eat whenever he wants, after two years of closely rationed meals.

“That’s what I thought.” You beam, kissing him once more before walking into the kitchen with a, “And no you are _not_ allowed to help.”

And in the kitchen the two of you feed each other bites of muffins and cake, enjoy salads and sandwiches and glasses of juice, and you keep the tv and the radio off, content to live in your own little bubble, at least for a while.

At the very least, for a while.


	5. Believe Me

_They sent me _

_and my friends _

_and my generation _

_To Vietnam to die _

_and some of us did. _

_The rest of us have been dying _

_in bits and pieces _

_since the first day they sent us _

_home. _

_\- Unknown_

The rest of the day is spent together in peace. Or at the very least, as close as he can get to it, like this.

He was gone, he knows. He knows he was gone. But you were still here, and life still had to go on. Dishes needed to be washed, dinner needed to be cooked, bills needed to be paid.

God, if there was one thing he had been terrified about, it was the bills. Flip spent exactly five minutes staring at the checkbook trying to make sense of the figures from the past two years, was thankful for your good bookkeeping. He was relieved to know that finances weren’t an issue, even after all this time. Between your joint-savings, his salary from the station, and the monthly allotment Flip had the military send out of his own pay – what the fuck did he need any cash for over there? – things were good. He was glad for it, he had had nightmares of you ripping your hair out trying to make things work, struggling for groceries. But by the looks of it, he could put that fear to bed. Things were good.

And they were good, they were. He tells himself over and over, tries to convince himself that they were good as he sticks right by your side, as he kisses your cheek on the patio in the backyard. You both talk and talk about nothing, about everything, the easy things anyway. You laugh at his jokes and he smokes his cigarette, chain-smokes them because he can. He finally fucking can.

He still shakes now and again, thinking of the sound of your scream, the way you called for him, only for him, earlier in the day. He’d never heard you scream in such panic like that before, didn’t know what came over him to beat the fuck out of that man, out of that sick sonofabitch who had the gall to slap you like that. He saw red, and he couldn’t stop apologizing, even though he wasn’t sorry he hit him. He was only sorry you had to see it.

Your mouth is fine now, a little bruised, but not bleeding. You’re not concerned about it, seemingly not concerned about anything now that he’s home, now that he’s back, and he admires the way you can do that, the way you can just not worry. It’ll heal up in a day or so, you keep telling him, but he can’t stop looking at it, at the dark splotch, the mark that mars your beautiful face. He can’t stop looking at your face. He never wants to.

It’s late in the afternoon, or maybe early in the evening? He doesn’t know. But the sun is just barely beginning to set, and you’re both still outside.

He bought you a new washer and dryer set right before he left, a parting gift to try and make your life easier. He had always helped with the laundry, always did it for you. Washed, dried, folded, set onto hangers, sorted by color and type, just the way you liked. You did so much around the house, the least he could do was the laundry. He always did the laundry and then all of a sudden he didn’t do any at all. Wasn’t there, wasn’t able to. So he bought the washer and the dryer in some small attempt to make it easier. A fancy new Maytag in a shiny olive green that matched the laundry room.

But some things couldn’t go in the dryer, some things would be destroyed if they went into the fancy new olive green Maytag, so they went out on the line instead, hung up outside in the backyard where the sun could warm the fabric and evaporate all the clean soapy water, could bleach the whites of the sheets, could air out wrinkles.

The sun is a smoldering red as it sets, the sky cast into shades of purples and pinks as the mountains go black when the sun dips behind them, and Flip can’t stop looking at you, can’t stop feeling lucky. He thinks you look like a movie star, the way you walk between those sheets, the way they flutter in the evening breeze, the way that same breeze kicks up your hair just a little. You’re singing a song, some old tune from when the two of you had just started dating. He knows the melody but can’t sing along, his voice not nearly as beautiful as yours, doesn’t want to do a disservice to the song by croaking it out.

He trails you, follows you close behind, right on your heel, as you reach up and unclip the clothespins, store them in your pocket as you move down the line. He follows you round and round, holds his arms out for you to drape the sheets across them so they don’t get wrinkled, and he folds them, places them in the laundry basket only a few feet away.

He helps you, wanting to make up for two years of being away, two years of being gone and leaving you all alone. He knows Jimmy helped, he knows that. But it’s not the same. He missed doing this with you, missed bumping his hip against yours, missed tugging on your hair, pinching your nose.

He helps you now, and you blush.

“Thank you, katchkaleh.” You say with a fond smile, a beautiful bruised fond smile, and Flip’s heart wants to burst out of his chest with love, adoration, worship, devotion to you.

It’s been so long since he’s heard his mother tongue, been so long since the soft sweet words had washed over his ears. Sometimes you slip into it when you spoke to him on the tapes, but it’s another thing altogether, another thing entirely to hear it straight from your lips, straight into his ears, his heart.

“Anything for you, ketsl.” He says back, and you beam, and pluck the cigarette out from between his lips and you kiss him, and he kisses you back with his arm full of sheets, and when you sigh happily against his lips he thinks – he _knows _– he can weather whatever storm.

The sun sinks and sinks and the purples and pinks give way to deep blues and blacks, stars coming up out of hiding.

“Which ones are they?” You ask, casting your gaze skyward for a moment.

Flip blinks back tears, because you did this sometimes when you knew he needed it, when you knew he needed something small to latch on to, to feel like he was the only person who had this knowledge, to feel important, needed. You knew which constellations they were, of course you did, he tells you all the time, points them out and traces them with his fingers, as if you could see the imaginary lines he uses to connect the bright dots.

Flip sets the last of the sheets down in the basket, all but one, which he unfolds and lays out on the warm grass of the backyard, lays it out full and wrinkle free, sits down on it. You immediately sit down next to him, and the two of you lay back against it, soft and clean and fresh. You pull him against your chest, both looking up, both looking to the skies. He breathes out smoke lazily through his nose, watches as it disappears into the soft blue of twilight.

“That one’s the North star,” He points, to the bright Polaris, thinks about how it kept him company overseas, thinks about how if nothing else, that star was steady, always shining in the night, shining for him. “And those are the dippers, but really it’s Ursa Major and Minor.”

“And those?” You ask, one hand carding through his hair, the other propped up underneath your head, a makeshift pillow as you shift further into the mild mattress the grass has become for you, underneath the sheet.

“Cassiopeia and Cepheus.” Flip replies easily, sucking in the nicotine and letting it flood his system, his nerves. God there was nothing like a pack of fuckin’ camels, he thinks to himself, nothin’ like the feeling of smoking with your heartbeat right near his ear.

_11, 12, 13, 14…_

He counts and counts and taps out your pulse on his stomach, smokes and counts and taps for a long while, until he finally exhales once again and points out, “That one’s Draco.”

“Which one do you like the most?” You ask quietly, fondly. You always ask him, and every time it’s the same answer.

“You, (Y/N).” He says, and the way he says your name has your throat tick just from the wetness of tears that’ve slid back there.

“Me?” You ask, voice barely above a whisper, almost lost in the sound of the crickets, the sound of the mountains.

“Yup.” He says, the red tip of his cigarette glowing, “Always you.”

And when he cranes his neck around to look at you, he sees the stars reflect in your beautiful big eyes, the way your pupils are large from the dark of the world, and he smiles. He rolls over, cages your body in his, his big arms on either side of your head as he lowers himself down just enough to kiss you, to hover his lips above yours. You stretch up to meet them, pluck the camel out of his mouth and pinch the end to put it out, and in the dark you smile back, smile right against his mouth as you kiss.

The two of you stay like that, the June air hot and sticky, even at night, even so close to the mountains. Both your eyes are closed but you can still see each other, pictures bright and clear in your minds, melting in to one another. Around you, the soft buzzing and fluttering of fireflies sound.

You keep kissing one another, slow slick slides of your tongues against one another. You’re not hurried now, not in this moment. It’s starting to settle in, Flip thinks, starting to settle into his chest that he has you, that he has all the time in the world now that he’s home. He doesn’t need to rush you now.

You let your legs fall open anyway, let him get more settled atop you, your hands slowly, lazily, drifting down to his belt, undoing the clasp there, undoing his zipper and pushing his jeans down far enough that you can stick your hands in his underwear.

His mouth falls open with a low groan against yours, and you huff out a pleased little laugh at how hard he is for you, always is for you. He drools into your mouth for a split second and feels gross for it, but you only swallow him down and give his cock a full heady stroke and he’s keening for you.

“Fuck,” He grunts out, and you only grin, something warm and playful and so so so in love.

“Please?” You ask, stroking him off, making him buck into your hands slowly, carefully.

“Fuck,” He says again, and though this time it’s altogether differently, it still makes you smile.

He rucks up your skirt and rips your underwear in two, the scrap of fabric bunched up and tossed to the side to be dealt with later. He doesn’t spare a glance away from your face to look at your pussy but he knows it’s wet for him, glistening in the moonlight. He knows because he can feel it when he lets a couple fingers drop down, slide and crook inside your hot cunt, getting you ready for him.

You let out a quiet gasp, a pleased sigh, as he pumps one, two, three fingers in and out of you, stretching you comfortably, blunt nails scraping lightly against your walls, searching for your g-spot. He drinks in the moans you let out for him when he finds it, when he rubs small circles around it, your legs twitching and alternating between falling flat onto the sheet or clenching tightly around his waist.

He studies your face, really studies it, obsessed with the sight of your pleasure, how it’s written all across your features. His eyes have adjusted completely to the low-light of evening, although the fireflies give him some fleeting illumination every now and again.

“I missed this so fucking much.” You cry, because you can’t help it, you just can’t. It’s all so good, so soft and sweet when he pulls out his fingers and licks them clean, lines up his hard dick and pushes it into you in the wake of those deft hands.

“Me too – _oh_.” He can’t help but drop his face into your neck, your shoulder, kiss and suck the skin there.

He wriggles his hips as close to yours as much as he possibly can. He’s bottomed out entirely inside you, and he knows he’s never going to get tired of this feeling, never. He feels drunk again, or high, or maybe both, he doesn’t know. But it’s not the crazy kind, it’s the syrupy sweet kind, the kind where everything is in slow motion. You’re a beautiful blur beneath him, and he struggles to keep his eyes open, to soak you all in.

“How did you do it? How did you get through those two years away? It was bad enough being here alone, but you – _god _harder? – you must have been so fucking scared.” You bite at your lip, at his lips, suck and kiss as he starts to thrust in earnest.

“I thought of you.” He confesses, hot tears threatening again, stinging, but not in that awful fucking way of the bad memories, this is a sweet kind of cry. He doesn’t know if that makes sense, but it’s true, everything with you is always just so _true. _“I only ever thought of you.”

“I stopped taking the pill.” You tell him, and he does cry then, he does, lets them spill onto your cheek and neck as he moves harder against you, holds your thigh with one hand, savors the feeling of your pussy wrapped around his cock, bare, no condom.

“You – you want…?” He can’t even ask, can’t even dare to hope, to dream, can’t the words out that are stuck in his chest like everything else, all the other feelings he’s got clawing up his throat.

But you’re nodding, and clinging to him, and he can’t help but kiss you, can’t help but plant a big smacking kiss to your mouth as he pushes into you harder and harder, up and up and up the soft white sheet on the grass.

“I do. It’s all I kept thinking about when you were gone. How when you came back, I wanted to grow our family, have some baby Zimmermans, have them run around in this yard, catch these fireflies. I want them, I want us to have them.” You say, tuck some of his hair carefully back behind his ears, as his hips roll against yours, his cock hard, throbbing inside your cunt.

Something about the conviction you have when you say that, _when _he came back, not if. When. You believed in him so much, he gasps for it – or maybe he gasps for the way you clench around him, press your hips up to meet him thrust for thrust. He doesn’t know, doesn’t think it matters. He loves you for all of it.

He fucks you hard, but somehow still sweet, and then suddenly he’s coming, and he feels so guilty because he didn’t get you off first, but you’re chuckling, just combing back his hair, thighs trembling, nipples hard against his lips where he mouths at them. He fucks you through it even as the stars and fireflies explode behind his eyelids, wants to get you close too. He bites and laves his tongue over your nipples as he fucks you, drops a hand to your clit and rolls it between his calloused fingers, and then you’re coming too, with a loud moan that carries and echoes across the yard, into the mountains, into the sky.

And then, he’s sobbing. Inexplicably, hysterically crying, tears for an altogether different reason, so full of emotion he doesn’t know how to let it out, so it comes out like this.

“You want me, you want this.” He beams, just absolutely fucking beaming at you, and you grin right back at him, clasp your hands on his cheeks and tug him down by those big ears of his, kiss him hard.

“Never wanted anything more.” You confess, holding him tight, until those tears turn to laughs, pure unadulterated joy, radiating out of the both of you.

* * *

Later, closer to midnight, after two mugs of hot chocolate have been downed and whipped cream has been sprayed directly into each other’s mouths, the two of you sit on the couch, curled up, feet tucked up under one another.

You look nervous, look anxious about something, and Flip frowns, pinches your nose.“What’s wrong?” He asks, trying not to panic. He doesn’t like when you look like that, never has, never will.

But you just chew the inside of your cheek, your hand tightens in his grasp, and you grow uncharacteristically shy.

“Will you dance with me?” You ask softly, embarrassed. “Please, it’s been so long.”

He’s up in an instant, in an absolute second, already over to the record collection, already rifling through them for something soft and slow, something romantic, something he can hold you close to.

“Don’t ever ask twice, you know I will, I always will.” He says, when he finds it, when he finds the perfect thing, when he sticks it on the record player, lets the scratchy fuzzy vinyl crackle to life.

It’s a slow song from the 50s, Flip can’t remember which year exactly, but it was one of your favorites to dance to when the two of you started dating, and it always made your smile a little softer, eyes a little sweeter, and the tension leaves your shoulders when you stand up from the couch and take his hand.

You’ve both changed into your robes and slippers, and Flip revels in the domestic bliss of it all. Your head and hand resting on his chest from where he towers above you in height, his hand in yours, his other caressing the small of your back. You step round and around, letting the music wash over you with eyes closed. It was a song you sent him a cassette tape of, all that time ago, and he thinks about how different it is now, how much more he really truly means the words that Perry Como croons, how much more you meant them too.

_Someone lights up my heart like the sun,_

_And that someone is you, please believe me._

_You’re my starlight when daytime is done_

_My darling, please darling, believe me._

_You’re the smile on my lips when I wake,_

_You’re a faith that I’ll never forsake!_

_No one loves with a love that I bring you_

_Please believe me, believe me please do._

_You’re the smile on my lips when I wake,_

_You’re a faith that I’ll never forsake!_

_No one loves with a love that I bring you_

_Please believe me, believe me please do._

The words aren’t lost on you, not one bit. Flip’s music choice has always been so sentimental, always. You know every poem, every song you’ve sent him over those two years, and when the song is over, the two of you listen to the crackling of the vinyl, empty space filled up with the warm fuzziness of a bygone era.

“Can I look at the mail?” He asks randomly when record player officially runs out of track to play, goes over to it and clicks it off. You nod, smile as you hand him the stack from the mailbox.

There’s something so comforting about the familiarity of it all. The newsletters, the catalogs, the ads.

“What’s this?” He asks, looking at the small envelope addressed to him, with the Colorado return address.

It’s not a handwriting he’s familiar with, and he’s always been pretty good about recognizing shit like that, but it’s definitely handwritten, not some piece of junk mail.

“Remember I told you something came for you.” You said, pulling him back to the couch. “I have other mail for you too, I’ve been saving it. Didn’t want to open it, since it’s yours.” You explain, and he smiles, thinks about the little stack that must’ve accrued. Thinks about the way you’re so careful with his things, always have been, always respected his privacy like that.

“Will you open this one? I can’t see straight I’m so tired.” He hands the letter to you and you happily run your finger through the top, tear open the paper.

“Sure thing honey.” You say, unfolding the letter, “It’s from a Mrs. Costell.”

“Eric’s mom?” Flip perks up for half a second.

He wonders how she got his address, if Eric had given it to her. He hadn’t had time, hadn’t had a moment to think about him since he came home, hadn’t had a moment to really sit down and think about anything. His heart beat a little faster, wondering if Eric got home safely, if his mom was reaching out to arrange a get-together.

But then, why wouldn’t Eric just write it?

“Oh…oh my god.” You whisper, and he’s already shaking his head, already balling his hands into fists which clench and shake, “I’m so sorry.”

“No.” He stands up, paces the room, the living room floor, the emptiness, the silence of the night too loud, so loud, and suddenly he’s back in the war, suddenly that silence is dangerous, and he breaks it only with another, agonized, terrified, “No.”

“Phil, Phil I’m _so _sorry.” You cry, your chin pinching, and he shakes his head, his hands, his body, he’s trembling, all over, when he extends a hand for you, for the letter, he doesn’t know which.

He knows, it’s you, it’s always you, but you also have the letter, and he needs to know, needs to see it for himself. He knows you’d never lie about something like this, but still. He needs to see it.

“Let me read it.” He says, and you carefully approach him, big wet eyes, and you bury yourself into his chest.

And suddenly his heart is beating fast for another reason, as he looks at your face, stomach sinking, a thick heavy steel weight sinking sinking sinking like the sun behind the mountains, when you cover your mouth in shock and grief, when your eyes close in despair.

And all you can do is say you’re sorry, sorry sorry sorry, as if you’re somehow responsible for this, as if somehow you’re to blame.

You’re not, of course you’re not, but your heart hurts just the same, and when Flip unfolds the slip of paper, lines and ink smudged with the tears of a broken-hearted mother, Flip can’t help but feel blame too.


	6. Poetry

The sky splits into nothing but white bright heat, lightning which cracks through the air, a downpour crashing onto his helmet. It’s really not the best time for conversation, Flip thinks as he’s hiding behind trees, the machine gun in his hands racketing and rumbling and rattling around, spraying too many bullets too many rounds a minute.

It’s pouring rain, they’re waist deep in mud, they’re losing.

Fuck, they’re losing.

So when Eric wades over to him, when he presses his back against Flip’s own, he can’t help but be a little short, can’t help but be frustrated as he blinks the milky brown water of the jungle out of his eyes. 

“What’s that?” Eric asks, shouts, has to shout over the sound of the fray.

They can’t go anywhere, nowhere to hide. It’s daytime, at least it’s supposed to be daytime, but it’s too dark from the clouds, the green of the trees deepened to an almost-black, as it pours and pours and pours on their heads.

“What’s what?” Flip snaps back, trying his best to concentrate, trying his best to stay alive. He’s got the kid to his back to give him cover, and he’s thankful, even if he’s not in a chatty mood.

“Your necklace, what’s it mean?” Eric asks, and Flip couldn’t be frowning any deeper if he tried, but he tries anyway.

“Does everything have to fucking mean something?” Flip doesn’t have time for this, not right now.

Not when he can’t even fucking see where he’s shooting, an expert shot meaning nothing in the dark. A crack of lightning illuminates the world for just a minute, and in front of his eyes soldiers dance and bend and crack their spines in half as they trip and slip and choke on mud.

“It does!” Eric won’t let this go, and Flip wants to scream at him, but he knows that doesn’t help, that won’t solve anything. It’s not like they’re hiding anymore anyway, not like they need to keep stealthy anyway. They’ve been found yet again.

“Magen David, it’s like our symbol.” Flip’s hand doesn’t shake anymore, when he reloads the gun. He wants to be sick, wants to heave up his stomach except for the fact that there’s nothing in it yet, there’d be nothing to get out. He wants to claw everything, all of his insides out. Instead he reloads his gun and tries not to let the kick-back smack Eric in the back of the head as he shouts, “Jewish people, I mean.”

“You’re Jewish?” That catches Eric off-guard for whatever reason, and even though his friend never lets his finger off the trigger, Flip can feel the curiosity pressing through his shoulders.

“What, never met one before?” Flip grits his teeth and does let out a long shout of rage and adrenaline and pure blind terror, because an enemy got too close, too close to killing him, too close.

He shoots him down and when his blood sprays up onto Flip’s face, he prays the rain washes it away.

He knows it never will.

“I don’t know, I don’t pay too much attention.” Eric shrugs as best he can while he tries to give Flip the same courtesy of minding the kickback. It’s not easy, with his hand blown off, not easy to do anything.

Flip gets hit with the butt of Eric’s gun, but he feels like somehow he deserves it.

“Fair enough.” He says when the shooting has stopped for now, only for the moment.

He grabs Eric by the scruff of his neck, drags him through the mud to hide hide hide, to hide until they can run.

Eric ducks down, presses himself as deep into the mud as he can, still fucking talking because that’s all he knows what to do. If he doesn’t talk, he’ll scream.

“Is your wife Jewish too?” Eric whispers, asks so softly that the pouring rain nearly drowns him out.

“Ohh fuck yeah she is.” Flip breathes harshly, tries to catch his breath, his heart beating in his ears. But above the noise of the rain and the gunfire and the pulse slamming against his brain, he hears Eric chuckling, somehow despite it all. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, you just sound different when you talk about her, that’s all.” Eric says, and Flip doesn’t have the time to really sit and digest that, because he notices someone’s boot’s sloshing through the water.

“On your left – ” He warns, rolling the kid underneath his body, hoping and praying that he can play possum long enough for them to pass.

* * *

Flip reads the letter over and over again.

He can’t stop rubbing his thumb over the text, smearing the ink beyond any real recognition. He knows they’re words, he knows they say something, but the cold numb of fear has blinded him to their meaning. He feels like this can’t be English, because he can’t read it anymore. He feels like his eyes are full of mud.

_Mr. Zimmerman, _

_Eric spoke so highly of you in all his letters. I wanted to thank you for being there for him, for looking out for him. I know how war goes, I know not everyone has the time to look out for their friends. But you did. You cared for him when other men would have left him, and I am eternally grateful for that. He mentioned something about your wife’s tapes, about the comfort they brought him. I can’t imagine the compassion it must have taken for you to share them with him, but even up to the very end, they helped him, and I thank your wife for that too. _

_I hope you can understand and will come to this address for his funeral, for his memorial. It would mean a great deal to him, I know it would. It would mean a great deal to me, anyway. I’d like to meet you, to thank you both in person for making his time in that hell a little more bearable. _

_Philip, he loved you very much. _

_-Mrs. Costell._

He wants to rip it into a thousand pieces, wants to scream.

Maybe he does, maybe that’s it, the last straw. Maybe that’s it.

“I’m so sorry.” You sob, having fallen to your knees in front of him, having fallen to the floor, wrapping your arms around his legs, desperately clinging to him so he can’t go out and burn the world down to the ground.

He sinks down too, lays down on the floor. The room spins as he breathes too fast, too hard. There’s a ringing in his ear, and he digs the heel of his palms into his eye sockets, lets out a stuttering shout of agony that he doesn’t even feel, he just hears in his own head.

“I don’t – I won’t – I can’t believe it.” He can’t even speak, incoherent, blind sobbing. “He was supposed to go home, he was so fucking close to going home!”

Flip rolls over onto you, buries his face in your stomach, shoves his head up under your shirt. The world is too much right now, too painful. He can’t bare to look at it, to look at anything but you. He paws at your sides, collecting you in his arms as he hides away from the world, hides in your embrace.

“Was it his hand? Is that what did it?” You ask, trying trying trying to process it, trying and failing.

You didn’t even know the poor kid, not really, and you’re failing.

“I don’t know, I don’t – fuck, (Y/N), fuck!” He shouts into your stomach, nose fitting right into the divot of your belly-button as he curls around you.

You only clutch him to you, you wrap your arms around him and let him shake shake shake, sobs wracking through him.

“It should have been me,” He wails, an angry outburst that has him pushing his face up through the collar of your shirt, has him shoving his forehead against your neck, your throat. “It should have been me instead.”

He tries counting your pulse, tries to stop himself from wanting to throw up, tries to stop himself from wanting to break something. There’s that beast in his throat again, clawing angry tearing up his windpipe as he gasps, trying to gulp down air.

_11…12…13…14…_what comes after 14?

“Don’t say that.” You immediately stiffen up, carefully try to extract him from how he’s entangled himself in your shirt.

“No, no please.” He fights you on it, doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t ever want to let go of you, he’s desperate for your touch, you’re the only thing that’s worth any of this, you’re the only one he wants. He refuses to slide out from under your shirt, refuses.

“He was nineteen, ketsl!” He looks up at you, blurry and warped through the tears in his eyes as he bemoans and pleads to let him stay this close to you just for a while longer, feeling broken, shattered, “He was nineteen and had never even had a drink before. He was nineteen and they killed him.”

“Phil.” You say gently as you card your fingers through his hair, a steady stream of tears from your own shock and terror cascading down your cheeks. Your breathing is stuttered, and Flip shuffles down enough to press his lips to your sternum, tries to leech some of your pain away.

“I should have – ” He starts, but you shake your head.

“There was nothing you could have done honey.” You’re heartbroken, for the both of them yes, but mostly for Flip.

“There should have been!” He slams his fist down on the wood floor near you, the dull pain throbbing through his hand. “There should have been. I tried – kestl I tried so fucking hard to keep him safe, I tried so hard, and he died. He died anyway. They all die!”

He cries loudly for a while, consumes you entirely underneath his body. He’s just rubbing his face, smearing his tears against your skin. You let him, don’t make him try to leave, don’t make him try to move. You just let him cry, you let him press himself as close as possible, try to climb inside your ribs.

You’re terrified for him, you’ve never seen him like this – not even when his Zayde died, not even then. You hold him too tight, because it’s all you know what to do, all you know how to help.

Eventually, the sobs subside.

It’s light outside when they do, a whole evening spent choking and gasping.

The birds chirp outside when they do, the rest of the world waking up and going about its business.

You’re exhausted when they do, your knuckles are stiff and sore from fisting the soft flannel of his shirt so tightly for hours on end.

“What the fuck, what – what the fuck is the point? What’s the point of all this?” Flip whispers, too afraid to speak too loudly, in case he starts screaming again, in case he scares you again. He wants to pull out all his teeth and cut out his tongue, for scaring you the way he had. “We never should have gone, we never should have started this. How much longer – how many more kids are going to die for the selfish greed of politicians who don’t give a shit about us?”

He sighs, lets himself sigh, lets his shoulders sag. He’s exhausted too, crying taking too much out of him. His voice is rough and raw, and yours is no better when you say,

“I know.”

“He’s just a kid, it’s not fair.” Flip slides out from underneath your shirt finally.

He needs to comfort you now, needs to have you in his arms, needs to hold you close. He feels guilty, so fucking guilty, about everything, about losing it the way he had. You eagerly bury your face into his neck, kiss every square inch of him that you can with small reassuring smooches.

How the fuck were you not running for the hills, he wonders. How were you not packing up a bag to leave him right this very instant?

He’s so emotionally fried that he just starts to cry all over again at the mere thought of that, of you leaving him.

“I know.” You say, and it’s like you’re answering everything, all of it, all at once. He doesn’t know how you do it, he doesn’t know, how you’re so able to just be so understanding.

“It’s all my fucking fault I should have – ” he shakes his head, desperate for a cigarette, reaches around in his pockets for one, for something.

He’ll settle for a stubbed out butt in an ashtray at this point.

“No.” You sit up then, you cup his cheeks firmly in your hands, your perfect hands with your wedding ring and your polished nails, untouched by war even if touched by time. “No, it isn’t. None of this is your fault. None of it. I need you to know that Phil, I need you know it’s not your fault.”

You’re insistent when you look at him with reddened eyes.

“He was going to go home soon, to his ma. He was almost out of it, almost clear.” Flip’s voice is just barely above a whisper but it cracks anyway, “And now he’s gone. Fuck I can’t think – I don’t want to think about him dying like that, dying alone.”

“Maybe he didn’t.” You say, so so so soft, voice like a cooling balm on his raw wounded mind.

“Huh?” He frowns, wondering what you’re talking about.

“Maybe he didn’t die alone, maybe…” You shrug, tuck his hair behind his ears, a nervous habit of your own that you can’t stop doing, not now, not ever. “I don’t know. Maybe he was in the hospital in Aurora, maybe he made it back. Maybe he got to see his ma before he passed. We don’t know, Phil you don’t know.”

“It should have been me.” Flip says again, but you shake your head, your eyes grow sad and soft in a way that makes Flip want to kill something.

“It would have been the end of me, if it were you.” You admit, steadily and evenly and with so much conviction that Flip sits up, leans up against the wall.

“Ketsl.” He warns, not wanting to even – unable to even _think _about that, about a world where you don’t exist.

“I’m serious.” You stand your ground, you get it out, even though Flip can’t listen to it, doesn’t want to. “It would have been the end of me, that would have been it.”

“Don’t talk like that – ” He says, growing panicked.

“How am I supposed to talk? Am I supposed to say, yes I wish you were dead? Am I supposed to say I wish the letter was addressed me to instead? I can’t, Philip, and I won’t.” You’re angry, and shame burns through him almost as strongly as the pain does.

“(Y/N)…” He chokes out, but you have to say it, you have to.

“You know that that was my biggest fear? That was my nightmare every single night when I could manage a wink of sleep? A call on the phone, a knock at the door, a letter in the mail. Someone handing me a folded flag, with _I’m so sorry _and _he’s gone._ I woke up screaming, picturing your body and face so mangled that the only way they could identify you was through the dog tags – screamed myself hoarse.” You’re crying hard again now, and he scrambles to hold you tight, wonders if he’ll ever really be able to let you go again.

“I would wrap myself up in your clothes and wander the house and burn your cigarettes and stare at pictures of you and hope and fucking pray to a god I’m not so sure even exists, that you were okay. I’m selfish – I know I’m selfish. But I would go to temple and sit and pray and beg and _plead_ that you’d come home to me because the thought of that folded flag kept me up at night.” You shouted, not at him, never at him.

You shout at the world, you thrust a pointed finger to the window, voice loud and raw and rough as you shout into his neck, as he crushes you to him, as he shakes all over at your outburst.

“And the worst part? People shunned me. People spit on the sidewalk where I walked, people keyed my car and threw rocks into the window because they thought I was happy with you leaving, they thought I wanted you to go and fight. But no one listens to the wives and mothers who kicked and screamed and burned the draft cards, no one listens to us when you all leave. I sat on my own in a corner of the room and I begged the heavens above to return you to me – I offered everything, would give anything to the stars if it meant you’d be home.”

You wriggle back enough, just barely enough, to wipe away your tears with your hands, and you shake your head, steely gazed, angry angry angry at the world.

“So I will not sit by and listen to you saying it should have been you. I will not sit by and let you take the blame for something that you had no control over.” You say, finish off your speech by saying that, before letting out such a deep and long breath that Flip gets anxious, wanting you to breathe in now. And you do, and when you do you’re calm again, calmer now that you’ve said all of that.

“Phil, you kept that boy alive so much longer than he ever would have, had he not met you.” You say now, a shuddering sigh sinking through your chest as you rest your head on his shoulder there on the floor, the sun rising up over the mountain. “You protected him when no one else did. You did more than enough.”

“I thought…” Flip tries, tries to keep his voice soft, quiet, tries not to have an outburst again. “I thought if I could do that, if I could just….”

“Breathe.” You encourage, the two of you taking in breaths together, heartbeats and lungs in sync.

And this is the hardest part, he thinks.

This is the part where he has to admit how fucked up he is, how evil he is. This is the part where you’ll realize he’s broken beaten and splintered to the bone. 

“I thought if I could keep him alive, if I could keep him safe, then it would at least make it all worth it.” He admits, finally has the courage to admit his selfishness. “Being there, doing all the awful shit I did. If I could just save one person, keep one innocent person from harm…then maybe I wasn’t such a monster.”

But then you do the miraculous. You don’t scold him, you don’t blame him, you don’t shame him.

You hug him.

“You’re not a monster.” You say, as the birds chirp outside and the sun rises and the mountains wake and the mail man makes his rounds and the breeze blows leaves all around. You hug him and you speak to him and there’s not an ounce of anger anymore in your voice, “You’re a kind man, who did the best he could in dark times.”

“I don’t feel very kind.” He says, tears clinging to his lashes.

“Kind men never do.” You pull back enough to wipe the tears away from his cheeks.

He doesn’t have the words to express how heavy the weight of that admission had been on his shoulders, how free he feels to have said it out loud. How lucky he is that despite it all, you’re still holding him in your arms on the floor.

* * *

They’ve got to catch up, to the rest of their squadron. They’re behind, Flip knows, that’s why they were in this shitshow to begin with. Flip wonders how many of them are left in the squadron to even meet up with.

They wade through the roads which had become rivers, water thick and murky, ominous. Flip can’t wait for the mountains, can’t wait for the dry air, can’t wait for the paved streets of home as he slings his gun over his shoulders, walking side by side with Eric through the jungle, towards a destination he doesn’t even know exists.

The rain has subsided to a light drizzle, no longer the tempest which raged only hours ago. Still, the world seems water-logged and he just knows that the minute he takes off his boots, his socks, he’ll see prunes in the place where his feet should be.

Eric smokes, and Flip smokes with him, a shared pack of Camels that the kid won in a game of poker, the red tips glowing in the grey-green filtered air.

“Where do you think we go?” Eric asks, shielding the cigarette so a droplet of rain doesn’t put it out, “When it’s all over.”

Flip’s hand is in his pocket, fiddling with the watch. He does this sometimes, runs his finger over the cool silver of it, clicks it open and closed, a nervous habit. Maybe he doesn’t feel nervous right now, he thinks, but his body still is, hands still are.

“You mean like, death?” He asks back, takes in a deep drag of the cigarette.

They’ve talked about a lot of things, over the past year and a half. They’ve talked about life and love, goals and dreams, history and future plans. But they’ve never once talked about death. Flip doesn’t like it, doesn’t really want to. He’s too afraid to jinx it all.

Like speaking the word out loud would catch the attention of the cosmos.

Flip doesn’t need any more attention.

“Yeah.” Eric says anyway, genuinely curious, curious in that way young eager kids are, “What’s the Jewish take on the afterlife?”

And that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Flip thinks as he flicks his ash into the river of silt.

“I don’t know.” He admits honestly, feeling bad for not having more of a concrete answer to give this boy, this boy who wears his heart on his sleeve and a cross on his chest, who wants to know about the world before he goes. “We’re notorious for being vague about it.”

Eric chuckles then, a chuckle which turns into a cough that has Flip worried, nervous. He clicks the watch open and closed in his pocket, not wanting it to get wet from the rain.

“Well then, what’s the Zimmerman take on the afterlife?” Eric says through his hacking, giving Flip a smile with the camel stuck in that gap in between his teeth.

“You really gotta get your mind on something else.” Flip says, trying to be light-hearted, trying to steer him in a different direction, a more positive direction. He’s the least positive person in the world, he’s a hypocrite, Flip knows. But this kid still has too much optimism, he wants him to hold on to it as long as he can. “It’s no good, thinking about shit like that.”

“Aw I can’t help it, you know?” Eric shrugs, jostles the weapon he’s got over his shoulders with his good hand, “Every time I fire this gun I think about it.”

And Flip sighs, stops walking for a minute.

He turns his face up to the skies and closes his eyes against the cool clear rain. It’s not cold, not really. He doesn’t think anything here could ever get cold, not the way it does back home. But his eyes are sore from the gunpowder and smoke, are sore from being so exhausted.

So he turns his face up and sighs again, lets the rain fizz out the rest of his cigarette, and for a moment, just for a moment, pictures your face.

“I know.” He says, when he’s calm again, when the thought of you smiling at him has settled the churning in his stomach at this reality, “Me too.”

“So?” Eric asks softly, watching him with careful eyes.

“I don’t know.” Flip responds with a sheepish shrug.

He doesn’t have room in his head to think of anything other than surviving long enough to get back to you, and staying with you once he has.

“Guess the Zimmermans are notoriously vague about it too.” Eric cracks a grin, kicks up a small splash of the thick water that has Flip shaking his head fondly despite it all.

“I just…” He shrugs, cracks his neck, his wrists, his back, tries to find the words that he doesn’t have, “I don’t think there’s anything out there, after all this. We have what we have and then when it’s done, it’s over. It’s not optimistic, so I don’t like thinking about it.”

Eric’s quiet about that for a while, and Flip tries not to feel guilty.

He does, he still does.

He thinks he always will.

He’s not so sure what he thinks anymore.

“Do you think there’s a God?” Eric tries with this one, and at least Flip can give a definitive answer.

“No. But my wife would always say, if there’s a God, and if there is something after all of this,” He sighs, turns to the skies once again, “He’ll have to beg for our forgiveness.”

* * *

You’re dressed in black, from head to toe. The sight makes him nervous, makes his brain trip up about all the ways this could have gone, how it could have been his funeral you’re so pretty for.

You’ve got your star around your neck, hair combed back and neat, and you’re fiddling with the band of your wedding ring as Flip drives the truck an hour away from the safe warm home you’ve built, out into Aurora. He doesn’t ask for directions, says he knows where he’s going, but he doesn’t.

When he pulls into a gas station and goes inside with you to pay for a stick of gum and a coke, he tries not to make a scene of it when you ask.

You don’t let go of his hand, not once the entire drive over, not once. He’s grateful it’s an automatic, the truck, because he doesn’t think he’d be able to let you let him go to shift the gears if he had to.

He doesn’t know when the last time was that he was in a church. He feels almost like an outsider, with the statues and paintings and glass stained faces all staring down at him, like they know, they know he’s not one of them. You hold his hand and stand beside him as he squares his shoulders and does his best, tries to pick out who might be Eric’s ma.

She finds you before you find her, if the tap of her finger on his shoulder is anything to go by.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman?” She asks, voice hushed in the pews.

Flip is silent, stunned, because he looked so much like his ma that he could almost cry again, looking at the face of his fallen friend. Thankfully, you don’t push him, don’t do anything other than offer this tiny woman a hug, somehow reassuring everyone, setting everyone at ease wherever you went.

“Mrs. Costell, I’m so sorry for your loss.” You offer your condolences, eyes wet and sad, brows pinched in.

“He’s…” She steels herself, takes in a deep breath as she gestures to a casket that’s open near the front of the room. “He’s over there, if you’d like to see him. Say goodbye.”

This shocks Flip, makes his heart beat faster.

“He made it home?” You ask, clutching Flip’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Yes, they emergency rushed his departure in the middle of the night, they knew he was dying.” Mrs. Costell doesn’t seem so sad, she must have known he was dying too.

“From his hand?” Flip asks, has to ask, throat still sore from all his shouting the night before.

“No, the cancer.” She shakes her head, making you both freeze.

“_What?_” Flip asks, blinking, thinking, trying to see, trying to…he doesn’t know.

“Did Eric not tell you?” Mrs. Costell asks, eyes gone wide with how such a secret could have been kept, kept for a year and a half, no less. “They only gave him a year, he decided to spend it fighting for something he believed in. I think he regretted his decision as soon as he made it, but. Kids do stupid things when they’re young.”

She smiles sadly in the direction of the casket, and Flip…Flip can only stare in disbelief.

“He was very brave, from what Phil tells me. Very brave. You should be proud of him.” He can hear your voice in the back of his head, as the world fades away.

The three of you walk up to it, and there he is, sleeping peacefully. He looks too thin, gaunt, and Flip wonders why he never asked, wonders why he never pressed the issue, made him eat more when he saw him getting thin. Bile burns in the back of his throat, but somehow, somehow seeing his face, knowing he’s here with his family instead of in a bank of soot and mud, there isn’t that gnawing clawing terror anymore.

“I am.” Mrs. Costell whispers, daring to place a gentle hand on Flip’s shoulder, a reassuring squeeze as if it’s not her son who lays before him when she says, “Mr. Zimmerman, he spoke very highly of you.”

“He was a good friend to have, ma’am.” Flip takes her hand, gives yours and hers a squeeze as he looks at Eric’s face, wonders if he’s somewhere among the stars. “I only wish I knew, I would have done more for him.”

“There wasn’t anything any of us could have done, once Eric sets his mind to something, I’m afraid.” Mrs. Costell says with a smile, before turning her head to the priest who gives her nod. “I believe they’re about to start.”

* * *

By the time they make it back to the meet-up point, the rain has stopped. They’re met with a thousand questions, the usual who what when why and how of battle. Flip and Eric answer the best they can, and then they follow their orders to clean up and get better dressed.

It’s almost time for Flip to leave, to go back home. For real this time, he’ll be getting on a helicopter which will take him to a plane which will take him to a bus which will take him to you.

For the first time in a long time, Flip looks in the mirror. He hadn’t been able to really see anything for a good couple weeks, not since Eric got his hand blown off.

He’s standing in a small building in a pretty well populated base, and the sun is out and he has no idea who the fuck is looking back at him when he glances into the mirror. His hair is long but all one length, not the usual layers he wears. His face tired and his skin is a frustrating combination of too dry and too oily, like all the moisture leeched out of his skin and sat on top of his face. His facial hair is unruly, wiry and patchy and all over the place.

Thankfully in this bathroom in this building in this base, there’s a standard issue razor completely unlike the one you use on him at home, and within the first two minutes he’s nicked his face, bright red drops plopping onto hard white porcelain.

“Fucking – ” He hisses, reaching for a piece of tissue or something to press into the cut on his cheek, “Shit.”

The door opens then, and in comes Eric, freshly buzzed hair down to his scalp. His ears stick out, not anything crazy like Flip’s did, but enough that Flip thought he was brave for doing it. It’s worrisome, just a little bit though, the way his skull seems to be so present, his bone structure too prominent. He’s been losing weight, too much weight, Flip’s noticed, even though he’s been eating just as much as Flip has.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, cupping some water in his good hand from the sink and dousing it over his head, washing away the little bits and clippings of hair that inevitably cling to the back of one’s neck.

“Cut myself shaving.” Flip mutters, willing himself to just get this over with.

It’s harder with Eric here, he doesn’t want the kid to think he’s incapable, an imbecile.

“You look like you’ve never picked up a razor before.” Eric laughs anyway, making Flip roll his eyes.

“My wife does it for me.” He says, unashamed. He’s embarrassed only by his own inability to get a fucking grip, and the longer he stares at himself in the mirror the longer he feels like he’s going to lose it.

He’s so so so fucking close to going home to you, he can’t lose it now.

“She does?” Eric asks, but there’s no trace of humor in his voice when he does, instead he hops up onto the small counter near the sink and watches him as he shaves.

Flip wonders if Eric ever learned how, or if he just never needed to. He’s only nineteen, only covered in a light dusting of peach fuzz as it is.

“Yeah,” Flip nods, picks up the razor and tries again, gets the hang of it this time as he faces the reality of his time in ‘Nam in the face, “She sits up on the counter just like that and cleans me up when I get too scraggly. She says it makes me look like the lumberjack I used to be. I just, I wanted to look nice for her, since I’m going home soon.”

He’s shy for some reason now, talking about you. He feels bad, feels so guilty, that he gets to go home and that Eric has to stay. He shouldn’t, not with his hand, he should be whisked away and taken care of, but they’re all too full, all the hospitals around, full up with men who won’t live to see another day.

“Hey, when you’re home and when I’m home, do you think we could meet up?” Eric pipes up, so brightly that Flip almost drops the razor down the sink. “Since we live so close I mean.”

“Sure kid,” He stops halfway, one side clean and looking more like the Flip he used to know, used the be, the other still a work in progress. He reaches for a tissue, rummages through his pocket for a pen and scrawls his address down onto it. “Come find me when you’re out, okay?”

And he smiles with shaving cream all over his face, which makes Eric laugh, which makes him laugh, and he takes Eric’s hand in his own when he says,

“It’s a deal.”

* * *

The ceremony is beautiful, if devastating. There’s not a dry eye in the room by the time the priest has finished, by the time he closes his book. He looks out to the small crowd who has gathered to mourn the loss of this boy, this teenager, tucks the book under his arm and clasps his hands in front of his chest.

“I’d like to now open the floor for anyone who might like to say a few words.” The priest steps away from the podium.

One by one his family goes to the front, has kind words and memories to share.

One by one they tell of his spirit, his spunk, his curiosity, his fearlessness.

One by one they return to their seats with polite smiles until they can curl themselves into their chair and hide their face behind white linen handkerchiefs.

One by one the room narrows down to you and Flip, and the small couple notecards burn a hole in his pocket when he realizes it’s his turn.

“Go ahead, I’ll be right here.” You whisper, leaning in to press a comforting kiss to his cheeks with a quiet, “Love you.”

Everyone looks at him when he stands up, no doubt confused as to who he even is, no doubt suspicious of what he has to say. He’s not in his uniform, never wants to wear it again, never wants to be seen in it. Instead he’s in the only nice shirt he has, a beige button-down with white and cream stripes, the one you always tease him for.

There’s no teasing now.

Flip leans into the microphone on the podium, fishes out his cards and stares at them for a moment.

For a moment, they feel like the letter had, and he makes the probably unwise decision to just speak from his heart.

“Um, hello. My name is Philip Zimmerman. Eric and I were friends, overseas.” It’s hard to talk about him, to think about him in the past-tense. And Flip has to take a moment before he can continue. But when he does, he finds that the words you helped him write coax the words in his brain out even more, and he finds he can’t shut up.

“The first day we met, he came over to me and asked if he could walk with me. I hadn’t ever had someone ask me anything, until then, and I thought to myself that this was a kid who was too good for war, too good to be in a place like that, doing the things we were doing. But he did them, and he held his chin high, even when he was sure things were going to go south.”

“We talked a lot about life, me and Eric. There’s not much else to do when the fighting has stopped. He was a lot smarter and wiser than just about the entire squadron put together, but he never once acted cocky or too brash or anything like that.”

“It’s hell, over there, right now. It’s been hell and it was hell when we were there, and it’ll be hell long after we leave. But Eric’s smile made the chaos a little less chaotic, made us all feel like if we could just get through the night, then anything would be possible.”

“He liked poetry. My wife used to send us these tapes, and she’d always read aloud something on them, to help us sleep at night. Eric loved the ones she sent that had her reading aloud the poems. I thought, in a way to honor him, I might read aloud his favorite poem that she sent. She uh, she wrote this one herself.”

And then everyone is looking at you, back at Flip, as he shuffles for the cards then, tries to find the poem you scratched out just for him, the one that was the only thing that could soothe the beasts in all their chests. It’s not the same as your voice, he knows, but he hopes it’ll be good enough for Eric, wherever he is up there, if anywhere at all.

* * *

It’s his last night, in the war. His last night in this uniform, his last night in this bunk. In any bunk, ever again. He can’t sleep, eyes refusing to shut and stay shut, mind refusing to quiet down. Next to him, Eric lays in the bed one over, and Flip can see the shine of his irises too.

The lights are off and the world is asleep, but they aren’t. Flip doesn’t want to think about how sad he’ll be to leave him, how scared he is for him. Who will watch out for Eric now, now that he’s going home?

He wishes he could bring him home, smuggle him into his bag and stow him away on the plane, but he knows that he can’t.

“Could you play the tape?” Eric whispers in the dark, quiet enough to not disturb anyone, not draw any unwanted attention to himself.

“Which one?” Flip asks, already reaching into his stash of them, dozens and dozens of small cassettes that have your pretty handwriting all smudged and faded, from the sun from the rain from the mud. Some have blood caked onto them, others have dirt. Some are scratched and some skip and some are so broken that there’s no way to hear your sweet words again.

“You know which one.” Eric says with a hopeful smile, hopeful that the tape he wants isn’t so damaged, isn’t so beyond repair.

He knows, he remembers, the one with the poem you wrote. A poem and some music, soft instrumentals from a big band a decade or two ago, the kind that plays on the TV when there’s nothing else on the air.

“Here – ” Flip says, plugs two sets of headphones into the player, hands the kid the player so he can hold it close, can rewind it as many times as he wants, as he needs. “We can share.”

Eric nods, grateful. He doesn’t show how grateful he is in anything other than his eyes, but Flip knows. He doesn’t have to say it.

Flip is going to let him keep it, he thinks. The cassette the player, the headphones. He doen’t need any of it, not when he’ll be coming home to you.

In the quiet, it’s enough to have the volume barely turned on in his headphones, and despite not being able to sleep, he is at least able to let go of that breath he’s been holding this entire time, lets it out low and long and steady, as your voice washes over his ears.

_“You say you found two rocks, dull and cloudy and scuffed. _

_I say you found two diamonds, diamonds in the rough. _

_You say you picked two weeds, spindly winding undone. _

_I say you picked two roses, roses desperate for the sun.”_

He spares a glance to Eric, but the boy has his eyes closed, has the blanket tucked up practically to his ear. It isn’t long before his breathing evens out, and Flip knows he’s fallen asleep, cradling the cassette tape to his chest, clinging to the sweet words of your voice. Flip can’t wait to feel them, to hear them, to let them wrap around him in person.

Tomorrow he gets on the plane, the plane which will bring him tens of thousands of miles away, and at the end of it, at the end of all of this, he’ll be back to you.

You, with your wide smiles and bright eyes, soft hair and skin and well-kept nails. You with your frozen grapes you slice in half, you sweaty palms, your sticky kisses. You with your pain and your sorrow and all your fears, all of the bad as beautiful as the good because they’re _yours_.

He tries, tries so hard to calm himself for you, tries to let himself fall asleep to the sound of your voice.

_“You say you hear two sirens, shouting in the night. _

_I say you hear a mother, holding onto her child tight. _

_You say you feel two sunsets, orange heat blazing in the air. _

_I say you feel napalm, sticking to innocent’s hair.” _

When Flip wakes up, when the time has come, Eric is nowhere to be seen. His bed is empty and made with tight-tucked corners, no trace of him.

Instead there’s the cassette player and his headphones, stacked neatly on the pillow. Inside it is a pack of camels where the tape should be, and Flip smiles.

* * *

They leave the funeral home after an hour or so. He doesn’t have any answers for their questions, doesn’t want to talk any more.

You hold his hand as he drives you home, and when you’re home you open your arms and pull him against your chest in your big warm bed. He counts the heartbeats there, looking out the window.

“You’re a brave man, Philip Zimmerman.” You say, no real purpose for it other than it’s on your mind. “You’re a brave man and a good man, and I’m glad that you’re mine.”

He doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know. So he doesn’t, instead he just kisses you, kisses you, kisses you some more.

He kisses you until the sun begins to dip low in the sky, until he’s exhausted and eager for a shower, eager to scrub the day away.

“Do you think we’ll ever get back to normal again?” He asks, rubs his nose against your cheek, his freshly trimmed facial hair tickling you, making you smile.

“I don’t know what normal ever was.” You point out, and he huffs out a small laugh, because you’re right – you’re always right.

“Do you think they’ll hate me?” Flip asks, scared, but needing to talk, wanting to talk to you.

“Who, honey?” You answer with a question of your own.

He only places his hand on your stomach, small circles there from the space where he hopes hopes hopes will one day house his child, will one day hold his baby. He doesn’t know, but that day is coming soon, so soon.

“What would they hate you for?” You ask, you whisper, voice hushed. You give him a small smile, snuggle up close to him in your bed underneath the covers, underneath the weight of all of the world. For the first time in a long time, it doesn't feel so suffocating. “For being strong? For being compassionate? For having courage?”

He doesn't know if you're doing that on purpose, being sweet to him. He doesn't know if you're doing it because you know how frayed his edges are, how shot his nerves have been. He reasons it doesn't matter too much, because in the years and years and years he's known you, you've never once lied to him -- and why would you start now?

“You’re too good to me.” He shakes his head, counts your heartbeats underneath his ear. 

“I’m not nearly good enough.” You say, voice real soft, “They’re going to love you, all the parts of you. You want to know how I know?”

“How?” He bites, asks even though he knows the answer. 

“Because I do.” You reply.

And for the very first time in nearly two years, for the very first time in what feels like a lifetime, he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a breath deep in his chest that burns through his veins. He will wake up to see another day, and you will be there with him through it all, through the good and the bad and the ugly, with a smile and a kiss and a hug too tight.

And for the very last time, for the very last time hopefully for the rest of his lide, he reaches across the bed to click on the cassette player, presses play on the worn button that’s been pressed so many times that the paint has rubbed away, as your voice fills the air.

And for the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time, he is grateful to be in your arms, in your home, with you.

_“You say you taste the ocean, salty fresh and clear._

_I say you taste the residue, proof of civilian tears. _

_You say you smell fireworks, festivities and culture._

_I say you smell gunpowder, smoke charcoal and sulfur. _

_You say you see two soldiers, mangled and twisted and torn. _

_I say I see two souls, souls which we’ll forever mourn. _

_You say you see two pigeons, branches in their beak. _

_I say I see two doves.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming on this journey with me <3


End file.
